Peer Group Pressure

On This Page:

• Prominence of Peer Pressure
• Significance of Context
• Dangers of "Street and Locker Room Talk"
• Sense of Belonging

Sociological Context

• Masculinity
• Control
• Social Exchange Mentality
• Peer Group Pressure

Table of Contents

• Home
• Mission Statement
• Recommendations for Date Rape Prevention
• Real Female Scripts
• Recommendations for Prison Rehabilitation Therapy and Educational Programs for Schools
• Research Findings

• Biographical Information About Perpetrators
• Model of Date Rape Factors
• Conclusions   
• References

• Statistical Data
• Trauma
• Women's Centers and National Organizations

  Prominence of Peer Pressure

• The last socialization element that is worthy of discussion based on my in-depth personal interviews is peer group pressure. This is a subject often discussed in the research literature on date rape.

• Peer group pressure is commonly thought of as an isolated variable with regard to date rape. However, data gathered for this study show that this social factor, like masculinity and control, has a significant influence on the thinking process of date rapists.

• All of these social factors, or perhaps only one of them, could influence perpetrators.

  Significance of Context

• It is important to realize the contextual influence of these components, as well as the psychological contextual considerations of personality, intent, positive expectation, and negative expectation.

• Obviously, the date rapists’ talk and behavior does not exist in a vacuum.

• When analyzing this social problem that affects so many innocent women, we should not ignore these societal variables that shape the date rapists’ perspectives toward women, male/female relationships, and their own sexual identities.
   

  Dangers of "Street and Locker Room Talk"

• The impact of peer group pressure on males to engage in sexual behavior was discussed by a date rapist (Interviewee 11) who also conveyed how the group of men he associated with tended to demean women:

I learned what I learned from the cats on the street. The cats on the street educate you about how to go to a drug store and buy a condom, how to try to get a girl hot, tell you what Spanish fly is, which is foolishness. They tell you all the things. And your mother sits on the sidelines.  ...In the streets, you learn “Don’t pay attention to women.” If a woman is around you, she wants to give you some. Period; end of story. She can’t want you for a friend; she can’t like you because of your mind; she can’t like you because of your personality. She wants to give you some.  
 

• Interviewee 15 echoed the belief that some women desire sex without qualification in recalling what boys told him in his youth:

The boys back home then--and I don't know if they still do or not--it's been 40 years ago, they had always told me that some women say ‘No’ even when they mean ‘Yes.’

• Once again, this male perspective reinforces the rape myth that women generally desire sex even though they may protest men's sexual initiatives. It is a myth that encourages men to ignore female rejections.
   
• The effect of peer group pressure on men is more dramatic if one considers how males, either in their childhood or adulthood, encourage other males within their group to share details of sexual relations and conquests with women. Interviewee 11 offers an example:

All the men, the boys, the big guys, were talking about who they knocked off over the weekend. So, you have this idea in your mind, that that’s part of what manhood’s all about.

 

  Sense of Belonging

• Based on this transcript excerpt, both researchers and readers may understand how peer group members determine what kind of behaviors are expected from and acceptable for other members.

• In this case, a member of the group realizes that sharing information about sexual interactions between himself and women makes the other group members accept him.  It also makes him seem masculine to the other members.
   

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