What Would You Do to Please a Handful of Friends?

Source: Yana Hoffman

So you’ve just met somebody you think is pretty cool. You’re entranced by them. Intrigued. Maybe even turned on. But this person is—as you’re about to learn—not quite so intriguing to the people around you. Maybe they see something in him that you don’t see. Maybe the person is part of a demographic that triggers those around you: Is it their social style? Race? Religion? Occupation? Lack of education? Whatever it is, you’re about to hear some opinions and get advice from those around you.

What are you going to do with those messages? Can you stay centered and disregard what you hear? Maybe, but keep in mind, it’s a rare individual who can stand up to family, friends, or an entire cohort, and tell them to mind their own business.

Hardly any of us have lived a life free from unwanted advice and judgments, and there's no shortage of either. Most times it’s well-meaning, although there are certainly exceptions. Almost always it can put us in conflict between what we want and what they want for us. And as we all know, advice can come with consequences if you don’t follow it. There’s a slippery slope between advice and pressure.

There’s a big difference between feedback we’ve asked for and the kind that arrives unbidden. But really, how often do we go to our friends or family and ask for their opinions. “I wonder if you can tell me what you think about this new guy I’ve been dating. Do you think he’s worth me?” You might not like the answer, but at least you asked for it. Truth is, for most of us, advice is far more likely to be imposed than requested. (“I know it’s none of my business but…”) When advice comes out of the blue, it can be more upsetting, especially when it's packaged with consequences, subtle or otherwise.

Sometimes advice, welcome or not, can come from a group, rather than an individual. That can be more difficult, yet. Going against Cathy’s wishes is one thing. But when Cathy and Jenny and Chris all come to you at once, you’re into a whole other level of decision making. Now you’re flirting with peer pressure, which is a formidable adversary. And for good reason, as we’ll see in a moment.

So entrenched are these problems in social life that they are a mainstay of fiction, such as film, literature, popular music and opera. Let’s stick with what I know best – pop music and film, even if some of these examples may be unfamiliar to you.

1961 was a transitional era in popular music: Just a couple of years before the British Invasion took hold with groups like the Beatles and Rolling Stones. The heyday of raw, roots rockers like Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry was fast disappearing. It was onto that landscape that a singer you never heard of named Don Carroll wrote and recorded a song called “A Handful of Friends.” His version of the song appeared on a highly successful New York label called Cadence Records. With artists like the Everly Brothers, the label was no stranger to success. But they couldn’t make it happen for A Handful of Friends. (You’ll find a link to the original recording at the end of this article).

Nearly sixty years later, that seems a shame and a bit of a surprise. It’s also worth some passing attention from us psychologists or students of popular culture. Unlike so much teen-pop music of the era, the lyrics to A Handful of Friends do not reduce to idiotic fluff when examined all this time later. In fact they touch a nerve about peer pressure that could sustain a feature article in Psychology Today.

The song describes a guy who met a girl he was strongly attracted to, but walked away from, because his friends didn’t approve of her. What went wrong here? It wasn’t his parents who objected; that would have been easier to discount. This is worse. It was his friends. They should know better. Your friends should see the world the way you do. They should be on your side.

But in this case they didn’t, and they weren’t. And it was too much for him. The song A Handful of Friends describes his dilemma. Did he go his own way and say ‘The hell with the crowd,’ or did he fall in line and let his friends’ values rule his life? The verdict, sadly, is that he fell in line with his friends and broke up with her. In social science lingo, he caved in to peer pressure. He chose them over her and now he’s filled with regret. The lyric is doubly disturbing because the group was small. It wasn’t even a roomful of friends. It was just a “handful.” But large or small, the message is the same. The singer didn’t please himself or trust his own judgment. He bent to the will of his cohort and let their opinion guide him. In this case, being “one of the guys” and not risking being ostracized came with a large price tag. And that’s what the song is about. In fact, it ends with a clear warning about the perils of peer pressure: a “Never again will I be so stupid” coda. Keep in mind, this is pretty heavy stuff for a piece of pop music in 1961.

If you watch old movies, you can see this same theme acted out in the 1955 Academy award-winning film Marty. The title character, hardly an Adonis, is counseled by both his mother and his closest friend to break up with a woman he’s just met, whom the friend calls “a dog.” The film’s undeniable power comes from watching Marty struggle to resist this advice and give himself a chance for happiness with this woman. Audiences routinely cheered this heroic moment in theaters in the 1950s. And make no mistake about it: it is heroic. It requires a pretty solid grounding and sense of right and wrong to go against what is arguably some hard-wired circuitry to follow the crowd and preserve group cohesion. Groups served a key role in the evolution of our species, and people (or actions) that threatened the integrity of the group (and its rules) were not viewed kindly. Some form of the practice of “shunning” appears in most major religions as both a deterrent and a way to punish those who don’t follow norms. Conformity and in-group status got us through the Pleistocene Age (another term for a solitary human 100,000 years ago was a dead human), and the importance of such conformity is alive and well in the modern social world. Just check out your local high school.

Friends Essential Reads

How a Friend Group's Texting Can Turn Toxic

10 Key Strategies for Making Friends as an Adult

A broader example of peer pressure that goes against an individual’s wishes appears in the 1959 hit record by New Orleans singer Lloyd Price and his song called "Personality." Price proudly tells us that he doesn’t care if his friends call him a fool. Like the movie character “Marty,” Price follows his heart and saves himself the regret expressed in Don Carroll’s 1961 record.

Keep in mind that unwanted advice from parents, family or friends isn’t necessarily wrong. Failing to heed it can occasionally be costly, as Percy Sledge’s 1968 record "Take Time To Know Her" reveals. Like Don Carroll, Sledge’s song is full of regret; however, in this case he should have listened to what his friends said. It’s a complicated world out there.

Perhaps the most creative take on peer pressure was offered by bluesman Bobby Bland in his 1962 record “Your Friends.” Bland isn’t the one who’s in conflict; that dilemma belongs to his girlfriend, whose friends are doing what they can to get her to dump the singer. In an unexpected twist, Bland delivers the punch line during the song’s final couplet: “You better get hip to all your girlfriends / They’re just trying to get next to me!” It’s a clever bit of psychologizing: he denies all their accusations, but scores his most persuasive point by revealing their hidden agenda.

If you think these issues died in the 1950s and ‘60s, have a listen to what teen heartthrob Justin Bieber has to say about peer pressure vs. true love. In "Love Me" (2010), Bieber’s friends join that long list of unsolicited advisors who call the singer a fool for his choice in females. But like Lloyd Price before him, Bieber rejects their advice and lives to sing about it.

Certainly both Justin Bieber and Lloyd Price sold a lot of records when they rejoiced after following their own counsel. And Marty won the Academy Award for doing the same. On the other hand, Don Carroll sold very few records when he owned up to his poor judgment and admitted he should not have worried about what his pals thought. Admittedly Carroll’s record is a downer and Bieber’s is three minutes of teeny-bopper joy. But then, a good cry hasn’t exactly been commercial death over the years, either at the movies or in song.

Undoubtedly, readers will have no trouble recalling their own examples of the pain or joy that comes from resisting peer advice, or its evil cousin: peer pressure.

Thanks to Scott Parker, and to Yana Hoffman for her photos of the lovely Penny Sally.