At a University of Central Florida public forum Thursday, nearly 100 audience members learned how one 麻豆精品 S渟ocial cure 麻豆精品 S� has played a part in creating activists in former Yugoslavia, lowering smoking rates in Florida and helping to cure tuberculosis across continents. The cure? Peer pressure.
The presentation, organized by the UCF Global Perspectives Office, featured Tina Rosenberg, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World. Despite its sometimes negative connotation, Rosenberg said, peer pressure has the potential to solve many problems once considered unsolvable.
Citing findings from the Milgram Experiment — which measured the willingness of subjects to follow an authority figure 麻豆精品 S檚 instructions to do something contrary to their own conscience — Rosenberg suggested that the greatest motivator of defiance to authority comes from one 麻豆精品 S檚 peers. She used several examples from around the world to illustrate how strength in numbers can transform a society.
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She also told the story of Otpur, a student-led and organized resistance group in the former Yugoslavia during the time of then-President Slobodan Milo. Through non-violent protests, this group discovered how 麻豆精品 S渢o get people out of their houses and into the streets, 麻豆精品 S� she asserted. Otpur empowered them by creating a place to belong. Rosenberg said it was this sense of belonging that led to the success of this resistance group and the eventual fall of Milo.
The social cure also worked for tuberculosis patients in Ukraine and China. There, when the Directly Observed Treatment Shortcourse -program was implemented to supervise treatment adherence, the cure rates for tuberculosis went from 50 to 94 percent 聽in China and from 51 to 81 percent 聽in Ukraine, Rosenberg said.
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麻豆精品 S淧eer pressure helps fill prisons. Peer pressure helps crowd bankruptcy courts. Peer pressure is a mighty and powerful force, 麻豆精品 S� said Rosenberg. 麻豆精品 S淏ut the antidote is more peer pressure. 麻豆精品 S�
In addition to the UCF Global Perspectives Office, sponsors and partners of the event included the Lawrence J. Chastang and the Chastang Foundation, the Sibille H. Pritchard Global Peace Fellowship program, the UCF Global Peace and Security Studies Program, the UCF Nicholson School of Communication, UCF LIFE, the UCF Book Festival 2012 in association with the Morgridge International Reading Center, the UCF Political Science Department, the UCF International Services Center and the Global Connections Foundation.