The Pressure Builds

Peer pressure is a great tool if you use it for good, and bad if you use it for bad. If you surround yourself by drug addicts, you're probably gonna get sucked in after a while. If eat out with people who tip well at restaurants, you will probably tip well too just to not be a cheapskate—I prefer to say "spendthrift" but the vocabulary doesn't really matter, you're gonna tip better.

Peer pressure is the same thing that dictates many things in our lives without actually knowing it. How many of you, when walking through a park or public lawn, have seen a sign that says advises you to "keep off the grass"? Or another that says, "Wet paint, do not touch." Or heard requests to limit flash photography in a theater, or turn you cell phone off when you enter church, or to stand for the playing of the national anthem, or to hold a moment of silence?

I'm guessing there are very few of you that stepped on the grass, touched the wet pain, started taking flash pictures at the opera, or answered your phone in the middle of church, or turned your back to the playing of the national anthem, or made obnoxious noises during a moment of silence. Why do you do such things? Is it because you're a mindless lemming? Is it because your mommy and daddy taught you manners? Is it because you are respectful and considerate of others?

It's probably not any of those things. It's probably because you're afraid. Because if there is anything society is good at, it's enforcing its will on those that step outside its' bounds.

If you take a flash picture while at the opera, a team of Special Forces won't paratroop down and arrest you at gun point, you'll just get a lot of leery looks from your fellow patrons. If you continue, they may ask you to stop or even an usher will come talk to you. If you answer your phone during church, the pastor will not halt the service to excommunicate you (usually), but the people sitting around you will probably tell you to turn your phone off because it's inappropriate. Who decided it's inappropriate? We all did.

Whether or not it is right, just, or Biblical, you will pay a price for going against the collective will of and violating the manners of society.

After putting up our schedule for breakfast at the orphanage, our rather rebellious girl was prepared to pay the physical cost of refusing to cook breakfast. What she had failed to anticipate was the social cost as during the next week she had to deal with glares, stares, whispers and slights of the others. When her turn came, she was up early and in the kitchen making porridge for everybody.

What I call the social cost is really the tantamount to peer pressure. This girl that stated her refusal to contribute to cooking porridge could tolerate being withheld breakfast, but couldn't tolerate the hostility that had come between her and literally every other person at the orphanage.

Social costs are often a more effective way at producing results than a financial or physical costs. The best way to get people to practice a certain behavior is convince them that there is a social reward for complying or a social penalty for non-compliance. Towns in America that have tried to cut down on prostitution, for example, have found little success with increased fines or jail terms. However, one effective way many cities have found is publishing the names and pictures of the johns. Want people to buy war bonds? Convince them that it is their moral and patriotic duty, and if they don't they might as well be picking up a gun and joining sides with Tojo.

Here in the orphanage the most effective way to change someones disobedience is not have them do dishes for a week or have a timeout in their room. The girl that refused to cook breakfast, she did not fear the punishment that would come with her disobedience. What she obviously feared was the exclusion and embarrassment from the others.

Once we had a boy we caught stealing food. Being particularly rebellious, we new the only way he would reform was if he was too ashamed or embarrassed socially to continue this behavior. His punishment that day was anytime the girls needed water to carry to the bathroom for showers they would ask him and he would carry it. It was great fun and most the girls took about three showers that day. About three times during the day he came to me asking to end his punishment because he learned his lesson. Good. Now it was time to reinforce it and make sure he remembers the embarrassment next time he wants to steal food, because if there is one thing that society here is good at, it is enforcing it's will on other people and exacting a social cost.

Social costs are a great way to influence good behavior. They are unfortunately a main driver behind bad behavior.

Here in Nampula there is an incredible amount of peer pressure that envelops nearly every aspect of life. Expected behaviors, attitudes, actions, customs, and beliefs are elevated over and above the individual to constitute what we would consider a value system. What people do is derived from their morals, and morals are (rightly or wrongly) derived from the combined will of that people. Therefore going against the customs and morals is not a sin against God, it is against your parents, neighbors, ancestors, and pretty much everybody you know.

This week, there was some truly shocking news out of South Africa (our direct neighbors). A nationwide government survey found that 30% of girls in high school have HIV. Three in ten! This isn't exactly a condition that is going to go away anytime soon. In a few years it will be 30% of young adults and then thirty percent of mothers. The other shocking thing that came out of the survey is that while is the disease is rampant among schoolgirls, the infection rate for boys is only around 4%.

The survey found that these girls are not getting HIV from their peers, they're getting it from older men that the survey referred to as "sugar daddies". Yep, sugar daddies. One of the driving factors they found talking to girls is that they would notice their classmates showing up with new clothes, jewelry, expensive cellphones, all symbols of wealth/status. They girls also verbally encouraged each other that in order to have the same status, they too needed to prostitute themselves. Clearly it's an epidemic driven by the stigma or pressures of not having the same social status as your peers.

That's why when some kids here have families visit them we need to monitor the meetings, otherwise the girls get encouraged to start sleeping with teachers because, "You're clearly not smart, how else are you going to get passing grades?" As if the pressure form classmates wasn't enough, we don't need their mothers telling them this too. And it's equal pressure on the boys too because there are enough girls looking to put out that all you have to do is throw a rock and you'll hit one. Others are encouraged to steal, intimidate teachers, do witchcraft on them, a whole litany of things.

The challenge is that I know that the way things are is not the way they ought to be. The trouble is in convincing others that this too is the case. People in our church stay home Sundays because they'd rather that than be mocked by their neighbors for "wasting their time." People who steal and get away with it should not be incentive for you to steal. Boys who sleep around with any girl they please is not encouragement for you to do likewise.

It is tough though because there are the girls that get diplomas not even knowing how to read from passing around with teachers. Girls that have cellphones and no short supply of fancy clothing. There are the boys that show up with the tales from drinking all weekend or the people they stole from or all the girls they took advantage of all the "favors" they cashed in. It's hard to convince the kids that we reap what we sow.

I have seen the righteous die in his righteousness and the wicked prolong his days in his wickedness... yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they fear before Him.