Social Psychology amongst Cheerleaders
For this paper, I chose to evaluate my high school’s cheerleading team for concepts that were taught in Social Psychology. I was a member of this team for my junior year of high school- 2012 to 2013. I was a first-year varsity cheerleader, and it was my second year attending this school. This team was almost entirely composed of student dancers with teammates ranging from fourteen years old to eighteen year olds. I was the only non- freshman who had not been on the team previously- it was extremely close knit. Our captain- a senior named Penelope , and her two closest friends were her co-captains Morgan and Denise. The very first day that the team all got together to meet one another, there was a …show more content…
On this team there was an immense amount of gossiping, attempting to cause other’s emotional pain and forming alliance to achieve different benefits. All girls of the same grade would band together and attempt to stick up for one another. The freshman girls, May, Holly, Emma and Sara stood together and began to treat Morgan terribly because Morgan had embarrassed Sara by telling the entire team that Sara was failing classes. This is picturesque relational aggression. There is no physical aggression being displayed- it is emotional aggression. These acts of aggression are intended to taint one’s social standing, friendships or one’s self-esteem. By forming an alliance with one another, the freshman girls were able to ensure that they would never be without a friend. The girls gossiped about Morgan to retaliate for her causing Sara embarrassment; they were attempting to tarnish Morgan’s high reputation. This aggression is mental rather than physical, but can be just as painful. Females are more likely to engage in relational aggression rather than physical aggression. In this group of twenty something teenage girls, there was ample evidence of social psychology. There were tactics to achieve compliance, conformity, aggression, prejudices and stereotyping and many other facets of this course could be accurately applied to this group of
For this paper, I chose to evaluate my high school’s cheerleading team for concepts that were taught in Social Psychology. I was a member of this team for my junior year of high school- 2012 to 2013. I was a first-year varsity cheerleader, and it was my second year attending this school. This team was almost entirely composed of student dancers with teammates ranging from fourteen years old to eighteen year olds. I was the only non- freshman who had not been on the team previously- it was extremely close knit. Our captain- a senior named Penelope , and her two closest friends were her co-captains Morgan and Denise. The very first day that the team all got together to meet one another, there was a …show more content…
On this team there was an immense amount of gossiping, attempting to cause other’s emotional pain and forming alliance to achieve different benefits. All girls of the same grade would band together and attempt to stick up for one another. The freshman girls, May, Holly, Emma and Sara stood together and began to treat Morgan terribly because Morgan had embarrassed Sara by telling the entire team that Sara was failing classes. This is picturesque relational aggression. There is no physical aggression being displayed- it is emotional aggression. These acts of aggression are intended to taint one’s social standing, friendships or one’s self-esteem. By forming an alliance with one another, the freshman girls were able to ensure that they would never be without a friend. The girls gossiped about Morgan to retaliate for her causing Sara embarrassment; they were attempting to tarnish Morgan’s high reputation. This aggression is mental rather than physical, but can be just as painful. Females are more likely to engage in relational aggression rather than physical aggression. In this group of twenty something teenage girls, there was ample evidence of social psychology. There were tactics to achieve compliance, conformity, aggression, prejudices and stereotyping and many other facets of this course could be accurately applied to this group of