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The Effect of Peer Pressure on Truth Telling

CSEF · 2015 Behavioral & Social Sciences

Camden J. Breaux · Union Hill School, Grass Valley, Nevada County

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of this experiment was to see if young adolescents would tell the truth when under peer pressure. Methods/Materials Two batches of brownies were made following the same recipe, except brownie "B" had a large amount of salt added, less sugar and chocolate chips, and vanilla omitted to make them less sweet and more salty than brownie "A". Students, from 4th grade to 8th grade, were asked to taste both brownie "A" and "B" and tell the researcher which brownie they liked best. Prior and during the brownie tasting, the researcher would recite a peer pressure script encouraging the student to like brownie "B" as it was the researcher's favorite brownie made by his grandma and her special recipe. Results were recorded and later analyzed. Results The results of this experiment showed that the peer pressure did cause the majority of students, 63% of the 68 students, to conform to the researcher and pick brownie "B" despite its salty and less sweet taste. Five out of six 4th-5th graders chose brownie "B" and 38 of 62 6th-8th graders chose brownie "B". Conclusions/Discussion The results of this experiment did support the hypothesis with 63% of the 68 students chose brownie"B" to be their favorite. Young adolescents, up to 14 years old, are highly susceptible to peer pressure. The size of the group involved in the peer pressure can effect conformity to peer pressure. This experiment was performed at church where truth telling is upheld as a strong character trait and could have been a variable affecting results. It was learned that peer pressure does affect young adolescents and it is important to choose our words wisely before speaking. It takes courage to tell the truth when faced with peer pressure.

Summary statement

My project is about the difficulty of telling the truth when pressured by a peer to do or say otherwise.

Help received

Mother helped type the report and used scrapbooking tools to design the layout of the board.

Competition history

  • CSEF 2015 Behavioral & Social Sciences · Entry J0403

Resources

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Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

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