Peer Pressure & Social Adjustment

A Presentation by Sara Walker

Opening ActivitySally is an academically gifted student who is in the 9th grade and no longer will be involved in a structured gifted program upon entering high school. She has lots of friends from middle school in her new classes who know that she is very intelligent and her best friend Rebecca has asked Sally to let her copy answers on a big history test. Rebecca doesn’t see anything wrong with Sally “helping” in this way, but Sally knows it is the wrong thing to do. If you were Sally’s counselor, how would you help her to deal with this situation tactfully, keeping in mind the emotions of students at this age and also the importance of friendships?

Academic Dishonesty

Due to pressures from peers, especially in academic settings, gifted students may participate in dishonest behavior in order to maintain friendships with peers and also in order to fit in.

A study was done on academic dishonesty and the following are the percentages of self-reported dishonest behaviors and rates of occurrence for roughly 1,000 students surveyed-

Cheating Behavior

Cheating Behaviors and Rate of Occurrence

Used unauthorized notes on an exam (whether in-class ortake-home) 63%Copied on an exam (whether in-class or take-home) 60%Gave/allowed to copy answers on exam 75%Turned in plagiarized paper 11%Used uncited source 15%Padded bibliography 34%Copied homework 90%Allowed someone to copy homework 89%Had someone do homework 29%Worked together when it wasn’t allowed 76%Invented data 53%Gave info to later section 79%Got info from earlier section 75%

Cheating continued.. These behaviors weren’t solely gifted students letting others cheat, but also include the gifted and high-achieving students cheating for their own personal gain. Motivations for cheating include:

Driven by high GPA

More competitive for college admission

Too many tests on one day

School workload too heavy

Easier than studying

Others’ cheating puts me at disadvantage

Need to excel at any cost

Teacher did not adequately explain material

I don’t have the ability to do well in the class without cheating

Pressure from parents

Helping a friend

Loyalty to a group (friends, sports team)

Others do it

No one gets punished/caught

Underachievement

Another social issue that gifted students face is underachievement. This occurs for a multitude of reasons, but sometimes it occurs because the students don’t want to be seen as different from their peers. Most students worry about being seen as too dumb, too fat, too tall, etc. So it makes complete sense that gifted students would fear being seen as only their label of “gifted.”

Social Adjustment

In a study done on postsecondary gifted students, many felt that they were not adequately prepared for college settings. Some reported that they felt that they had lost their “uniqueness” upon entering college. It was said that it was harder to stand out among others of higher intelligence.

Recognition from the university is another topic that isn’t talked about as much when it comes to giftedness. There are many supports in place for those who have learning disabilities or special needs, but the needs of gifted college students are not seen as a priority, once these individuals are out of the public school setting.

Activities for gifted students

Facilitate an open discussion with students, what is teasing? What forms does it come in? Brainstorm responses to teasing.

To cope with being teased about being smart (or being gifted and making a mistake), some suggested responses:

“Big deal, who cares about that?”

Personally, I’m glad I’m different.”

“Why thank you! I didn’t think you had noticed!”

“Hey, I was just starting to like you! Why use names like that?”

“Give me a break! Who said I was perfect?”

continued…

Some students feel different and alienated

One suggestion to help with this is to bring in a guest speaker or role model for the students to learn from this person and ask them questions. Seeing this person as a successful adult can help them to see that not only can they too be successful, but that “it gets better” after school is over.

Questions that may be asked-

“How were you different from other kids? How similar?”

“How did you get along with siblings/parents?”

“What do you currently do now? Professionally, for fun, as an advocate of?”

Group Activity

See handout

References