Fitting In and Pushing Back: teacher key

Peer Pressure, grade 9 edition, written for 9th grade. Peer pressure can be an outside push or an inside wish to belong, and it can lead to good choices as well as risky ones. This book looks at a famous line test, studies of teens and their friends, and ways to say no.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What did Nancy Hill explain peer pressure can also be?
   • An internal force, spurred by a desire to belong (answer)
   • A rule written by schools
   • A test of line lengths
2. In Asch's experiment, about how many people went along with the wrong answer at least once?
   • About one in ten
   • About three-quarters (answer)
   • Nobody
3. Volunteers in Asch's control condition virtually never made mistakes. What does that show?
   • The line task was hard
   • Lines look alike to most people
   • The wrong answers came from the group (answer)
4. In these pages, what does prosocial behavior mean?
   • Actions meant to benefit others (answer)
   • Actions meant to win a game
   • Actions done alone
5. In the classroom study of animals in an image, who changed teens' answers more?
   • A distant classmate
   • A friend (answer)
   • A stranger

Words

• clique: tight group
• prosocial: helping others
• malleable: easy to shape
• influence: power to change