Context and question: Communication within peer groups allows adolescents to explore their feelings and identity as well as develop and evaluate their social skills. Peer groups offer members the opportunity to develop social skills such as empathy, sharing, and leadership. Adolescents choose peer groups based on characteristics similarly found in themselves. By utilizing these relationships, adolescents become more accepting of who they are becoming. Group norms and values are incorporated into an adolescent’s own self-concept. Through developing new communication skills and reflecting upon those of their peers, as well as self-opinions and values, an adolescent can share and express emotions and other concerns without fear of rejection or judgment. Peer groups can have positive influences on an individual, such as on academic motivation and performance. However, while peers may facilitate social development for one another they may also hinder it. Peers can have negative influences, such as encouraging experimentation with drugs, drinking, vandalism, and stealing through peer pressure. Susceptibility to peer pressure increases during early adolescence, peaks around age 14, and declines thereafter. Further evidence of peers hindering social development has been found in Spanish teenagers, where emotional (rather than solution-based) reactions to problems and emotional instability have been linked with physical aggression against peers. Both physical and relational aggression are linked to a vast number of enduring psychological difficulties, especially depression, as is social rejection. Because of this, bullied adolescents often develop problems that lead to further victimization. Bullied adolescents are both more likely to continued to be bullied and to bully others in the future. However, this relationship is less stable in cases of cyberbullying, a relatively new issue among adolescents.
What is one area in which peer groups can have positive influences on an individual?
Answer: academic motivation and performance
Context and question: In April 2009, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear a suit over reverse discrimination brought by 20 white and Hispanic firefighters against the city. The suit involved the 2003 promotion test for the New Haven Fire Department. After the tests were scored, no blacks scored high enough to qualify for consideration for promotion, so the city announced that no one would be promoted. On 29 June 2009, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the firefighters, agreeing that they were improperly denied promotion because of their race. The case, Ricci v. DeStefano, became highly publicized and brought national attention to New Haven politics due to the involvement of then-Supreme Court nominee (and Yale Law School graduate) Sonia Sotomayor in a lower court decision.
The court cast was rather popular due to which person on the case?
Answer: Sonia Sotomayor
Context and question: St. John's (/ˌseɪntˈdʒɒnz/, local /ˌseɪntˈdʒɑːnz/) is the capital and largest city in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. St. John's was incorporated as a city in 1888, yet is considered by some to be the oldest English-founded city in North America. It is located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. With a population of 214,285 as of July 1, 2015, the St. John's Metropolitan Area is the second largest Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) in Atlantic Canada after Halifax and the 20th largest metropolitan area in Canada. It is one of the world's top ten oceanside destinations, according to National Geographic Magazine. Its name has been attributed to the feast day of John the Baptist, when John Cabot was believed to have sailed into the harbour in 1497, and also to a Basque fishing town with the same name.
In what country is St. John's located?
Answer:
Canada