The Role of Social Pressure on Academic Performance of Entering Freshmen

According to Rosabeth Kanter (1977), the more isolated the minority group members are among majority persons, the less likely they are to be successful academically. However, the higher the proportion of minority members in a group, the more likely they are to be successful. She also suggested that the presence of female students in a male domi

Meanwhile, Allen & Bragg (1968) investigated the effect of social pressure on learning acquisition. In their experiment, they tested the attainment of the concept of colored circles and triangles by subjects. They had three groups: the first group was called the veridical feedback group in which subjects received correct feedback for their answers. In the second group, called non-veridical group, subjects received incorrect feedback for their answers. The third group, control group received no feedback at all. They observed that subjects in the first group significantly perform better than those in the other two groups. Thus, they concluded that social pressure (i.e. veridical feedback vs. non-veridical feedback) affected concept acquisition. They extended their experiment to include two more groups; one group, veridical- non veridical: subjects of this group got correct feedback for their first task then incorrect feedback in their second task. Another group, non veridical - veridical; subjects of this group got incorrect response in their first task then correct response in their second task. They observed that the non veridical-veridical group showed a transfer effect. In other words, social pressure resulted in poorer performance in the second task. This research illustrated that a group of peers can strongly influence the concept attainment of each member. Agreement with the group is therefore

According to Frith (1997), social pressure can affect a student's performance by influencing his or her motivation. Putting doubts into a student's mind is a form of social pressure that can reduce his or her motivation. Grades and social status can have great motivational power; however, this power is negative most of the time. Meanwhile praising from the instructor and stressing on the importance of learning more than anything else have a positive motivational power. He concluded that motivation to learn is internal and comes from the individual but external social factors (i.e. grades and educators) shape this motivation.

The alpha group's orientation leaders conducted their meeting by mentioning only positive remarks and social statements about studying at Brooklyn College. They praised the quality of education, the amount of helpful opportunities, and the social benefits of graduation from the school. This was done to setup an overall sense of positive social pressure in the students' minds.

Since the students were not explicitly aware of their participation, they were not offered any incentives for volunteering. Participation required one full semester of study at Brooklyn College. The participants were tested simultaneously.

After the orientation, the students' performance throughout the semester was monitored. If a student was observed to be slipping in their studies as a result of the experiment, they would be informed of their participation and immediately desensitized. Fortunately their were no such incidents. At the end of the semester, all of the GPA's were recorded. The participants were then informed of their participation and desensitized of any latent effects.

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Approximate Word count = 3162
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)