No one likes to feel excluded. In fact, many people are so deathly afraid of exclusion that they will go to appalling lengths in order to avoid being the odd ones out.

Making a choice based on someone else’s decision leads to the creation of a “social default,” an option preselected by others that takes precedence over an independently chosen alternative. Consciously or unconsciously, we make our choices in an attempt to remain accepted members of the Glenbrook North mainstream.

An example of the social default lies plainly in the herd mentality that causes students at GBN to forgo lockers even if their winter coats and textbooks weigh them down, a practice nearly exclusive to our school. We juggle bagels and Gatorade and chips in the cafeteria instead of using a tray for fear of being ridiculed because, somewhere along the timeline of GBN, using trays became an uncool taboo.

And, most traumatically, it is the reason students often willingly put themselves through humiliating trials of “initiation” when joining a team or club to gain the respect associated with membership or being part of the herd.

An innocent attempt to conform to a group can have detrimental effects. The influence of our peers is notably significant thanks to the presence of the social default in many of the choices we make, so when our friends make poor decisions, neglecting to follow the general moral code of society, our personal standard for morality drops. We no longer make decisions based on comprehensive ethical guidelines or even our own virtues. The guidelines get blurry, manipulated by the herd, loosening morality as a whole.

What is wrong becomes right in the strong undercurrent of  the herd.

The herd mentality is innately flawed, and can be particularly dangerous for teens. The process of identity development natural to adolescents becomes compromised under the pressure of the social default. We already harbor enough insecurity and anxiety about where we fit in without the help of the hierarchical social structure that demands each person to find his or her place in a group.

But if we’re infected with this inclination toward passive decision-making already, deferring our best judgment to that of the crowd we submerge ourselves in, our independence and sense of morality in adulthood are ill-fated. We have to learn to make the right decisions now, on our own, without fear of being ostracized or separated from the herd. If we wish to use a tray in the cafeteria or stash our winter coats in our lockers, we should be able to do so. And if we feel like our friends aren’t making choices that align with our own, we should say something.

Being an upstanding, ethical person is not determined by how closely your decisions resemble those of your peers.

It is how willing you are to do what is right in the face of so many others doing wrong.