Why Teens Follow the Group: teacher key

Peer Pressure, grade 11 edition, written for 11th grade. Studies of line tests, charity time and brain scans show that peers pull on teens in more than one direction. The book weighs the evidence, including where findings disagree, and ends with ways to respond.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What did a 1980 British replication of Asch's study find?
   • Higher conformity than Asch
   • Almost no conformity (answer)
   • The same one third
2. Asch's volunteers often went along publicly. What did they know privately?
   • The majority was wrong (answer)
   • The majority was right
   • The lines were equal
3. What did the 1980 result suggest about Asch's high rates?
   • Asch made a counting error
   • Rates are the same everywhere
   • They partly reflected the 1950s American setting (answer)
4. In a study of 456 Dutch adolescents, who followed a peer's charity example more?
   • Younger teens
   • Adults
   • Older teens (answer)
5. In these pages, what does adaptive mean in Gradassi's claim about learning from others?
   • Helpful for avoiding costly trial and error (answer)
   • Harmful to groups
   • Hard to do
6. What did the animal studies suggest about social rewards?
   • Teen rats find play with other rats more rewarding than adult rats do (answer)
   • Adult rats play more
   • Rats do not play

Words

• clique: tight group
• prosocial: helping others
• adaptive: helpful
• replication: a repeat study
• malleable: easy to shape