title: Melvin Gordon

text: At the 2015 NFL Combine, Gordon set a new record for the 60-yard shuttle with 11.0 seconds. However, the record was then broken by Byron Jones who had a time of 10.98 seconds.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: The San Diego Chargers selected Gordon in the first round with the 15th overall pick. In addition, he was one of two Wisconsin Badgers to be selected that year.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: On May 15, 2015, the Chargers signed Gordon to a four-year, fully guaranteed contract for $10.66 million, with a $6 million signing bonus. The contract included a fifth-year option.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: Gordon began his professional career being named the starting running back for the Chargers' season opener, ahead of veterans Danny Woodhead and Branden Oliver. On September 13, 2015, he received his first career start against the Detroit Lions and finished the season opener with 14 carries, 51 rushing yards, three receptions, 16 receiving yards, and lost a fumble in the 33–28 victory. The next week, he carried the ball 16 times for a season-high 88 yards and made a 10-yard reception in a 24–19 loss at the Cincinnati Bengals. On October 12, 2015, Gordon had seven catches for a season-high 52 yards and also accounted for 42 yards on 15 carries in a 20–24 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 5. During a Week 6 matchup at the Green Bay Packers, he had seven attempts for 29 yards and lost two fumbles in a 20–27 loss. After six consecutive starts to begin his career, Gordon was benched for the beginning of a Week 7 contest against the Oakland Raiders. He finished the game with seven carries for 29 yards. Gordon returned to his starting role the next game at the Baltimore Ravens and carried the ball a season-high 18 times for 54 yards in a 26–29 loss. In his last game of the season, he had 15 rushing attempts and 41 yards in a 30–14 victory over the Miami Dolphins.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: On December 21, 2015, the Chargers placed Gordon on season-ending injured reserve after sustaining a knee injury the previous day against the Dolphins. He finished his rookie season with 184 carries, 641 rushing yards, 33 receptions, 192 receiving yards, six fumbles, and no touchdowns in 14 games and 12 starts in the Chargers 4–12 season.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: On May 10, 2016, it was revealed that Gordon had undergone microfracture surgery in January, but would still be ready for training camp and other activities starting in 2016. On September 11, 2016, Gordon scored his first two career rushing touchdowns in the season opener against the Kansas City Chiefs. He finished the 33–27 overtime loss with 14 carries for 57 yards. After Danny Woodhead tore his ACL in Week 2 and was out for the season, Gordon became the Chargers' main running back option for the 2016 season. In Week 2, against the Jacksonville Jaguars, he finished with 24 carries for 102 yards and a rushing touchdown in the 38–14 victory. In the next game against the Indianapolis Colts, he was limited to only 35 rushing yards, but he also recorded his fourth rushing touchdown of the season in the 26–22 loss. In the next game, against the New Orleans Saints, he finished with only 36 rushing yards but had two more rushing touchdowns in the 35–34 loss After the next two games without a rushing touchdown, he recorded 68 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns against the Atlanta Falcons in the 33–30 victory. In the next game, in a matchup against the Denver Broncos, he finished with 23 carries for 111 yards in the 27–19 loss. In Week 9, against the Tennessee Titans, he had his most productive game of the season with 32 carries for 196 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown while adding 65 receiving yards in the 43–35 victory.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: He totaled 229 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown from Weeks 10–14 before injuring his hip against the Panthers in Week 14 and missing the rest of the season. He finished the season rushing for 997 yards and 10 touchdowns to go along with 41 receptions for 419 yards and two touchdowns in the Chargers' 5–11 season. Gordon missed the final three games of the season after suffering hip and knee injuries, finishing just three yards shy of 1,000 yards rushing. Gordon was named to his first Pro Bowl as a replacement for injured Pittsburgh Steelers running back Le'Veon Bell.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: On September 11, 2017, in the season opener against the Denver Broncos on "Monday Night Football", Gordon returned from his injury and had a receiving touchdown in the 24–21 loss. In Weeks 2 and 3, he recorded a rushing touchdown in both games. In Week 5, Gordon ran for 105 yards on 20 carries and had six catches for 58 yards and two touchdowns in a 27–22 win over the New York Giants, earning him AFC Offensive Player of the Week. In the next game, against the Oakland Raiders, he recorded 150 scrimmage yards, one rushing touchdown and one receiving touchdown. On October 29, against the New England Patriots, he had an 87-yard rushing touchdown in the first quarter. The rushing play tied for the longest run in franchise history. He finished with 132 rushing yards and a touchdown in the 21–13 loss in Week 8. From Weeks 14–16, he had a rushing touchdown in three straight games. In the Week 15 against the Chiefs, he had 169 total scrimmage yards. Overall, in the 2017 season, Gordon finished with 1,105 rushing yards, eight rushing touchdowns, 58 receptions, 476 receiving yards, and four receiving touchdowns in the Chargers' 9–7 season.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: On May 2, 2018, the Chargers picked up the fifth-year option on Gordon's contract. In the 2018 season opener against the Kansas City Chiefs, Gordon recorded 64 rushing yards to go along with nine receptions for 102 receiving yards in the 38–28 loss. In Week 2, against the Buffalo Bills, he had three total touchdowns (one rushing and two receiving) in the 31–20 victory. In Week 4, against the San Francisco 49ers, he had 104 rushing yards, 55 receiving yards, and one receiving touchdown in the victory. In Week 6, against the Cleveland Browns, he had 132 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns in the victory. In Week 9, against the Seattle Seahawks, he had 113 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown in the 25–17 victory. In Week 10 against the Oakland Raiders, Gordon rushed for 93 yards and had five catches for 72 yards and a touchdown in the 20–6 victory. In the following game against the Denver Broncos, he totaled 156 scrimmage yards in the 23–22 loss. In Week 12, against the Arizona Cardinals, he suffered an MCL injury and was sidelined for the next game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He returned to playing in Week 16 against the Baltimore Ravens. Overall, he finished the 2018 regular season with 885 rushing yards, ten rushing touchdowns, 50 receptions, 590 receiving yards, and four receiving touchdowns. The Chargers made the playoffs as the #5-seed in the AFC with a 12–4 record. He earned his second Pro Bowl nomination for his accomplishments in the 2018 season. In the against the Baltimore Ravens, he had 40 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown in his playoff debut, a 23–17 victory. In the against the New England Patriots, he was limited to 15 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown on nine carries in the 41–28 loss. He was ranked 34th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2019.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: In February 2019, Gordon changed his jersey number from 28 to 25. He wore 25 throughout his collegiate career with the Wisconsin Badgers.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: On July 13, 2019, Gordon told the Chargers that if he did not receive a new contract, he would demand to be traded and skip training camp. His goal in staging a holdout was to make as much money as fellow running backs Todd Gurley, David Johnson, and Le'Veon Bell. Gordon stated that "I know my value. I know what I bring to this team, and I'm sticking with that." Through four seasons, he had 3,628 rushing yards and 1,577 receiving yards along with 38 total touchdowns.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: On July 16, 2019, Gordon stated that "I want to end up with the Chargers, I mean, that's my home. I'm not going to sit here and be like, I don't want to go back to the Chargers. That's the team who blessed me with an opportunity. They changed my life. Out of all 32 teams, that was the team that called. I can't forget them for that." Gordon continued his holdout into the regular season after the Chargers did not trade him and Ezekiel Elliott was made the NFL's highest-paid running back. He reported to the team on September 26, 2019, and the Chargers received a roster exemption for him.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: Gordon made his 2019 regular season debut in a 20–13 loss to the Denver Broncos in Week 5. On October 20, in Week 7 against the Tennessee Titans, the Chargers had driven down the field to Tennessee's one-yard line and had a chance to score late in the fourth quarter. The Chargers had run with Gordon on first down for no gain as his knee was down before he lost and regained control of the ball on the goal-line. On 2nd down, the Chargers again ran the ball with Gordon where Titans' linebacker Wesley Woodyard forced him to fumble the ball into the endzone which was recovered by defensive end Jurrell Casey leading to a Titans' recovery and touchback. If Gordon had scored the Chargers would have taken the lead with only seven seconds remaining, effectively ensuring a Charger victory. The fumble was the second of the day for Gordon as the Chargers lost 23–20 to fall to a 2–5 record on the season. In Week 8 against the Chicago Bears, Gordon rushed eight times for 31 yards and his first rushing touchdown of the season in the 17–16 win. In Week 9 against the Green Bay Packers, Gordon rushed 20 times for 80 yards and two touchdowns in the 26–11 win. In Week 10 against the Oakland Raiders, Gordon rushed 22 times for 108 yards and a touchdown and caught one pass for 25 yards in the 26–24 loss. This was Gordon's first game with at least 100 rushing yards of the season. In Week 16, against the Oakland Raiders, he was limited to 15 rushing yards, but scored on the ground twice in the 24–17 loss. Overall, in the 2019 season, Gordon finished with 162 carries for 612 rushing yards and eight rushing touchdowns to go along with 42 receptions for 296 receiving yards and one receiving touchdown as the Chargers finished with a 5–11 record. Gordon became a free agent after the 2019 season ended.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: On March 26, 2020, Gordon signed a two-year, $16 million contract with the Denver Broncos. The signing became official on April 27, 2020.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: Gordon made his debut with the Broncos in Week 1 against the Tennessee Titans on "Monday Night Football". During the game, Gordon rushed 15 times for 78 yards and a rushing touchdown in the 16–14 loss. In Week 4 against the New York Jets on "Thursday Night Football", he had 23 carries for 107 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns, including a game-sealing 43-yard touchdown, in the 37–28 victory.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: In Week 11 against the Miami Dolphins, Gordon rushed 15 times for 84 yards and two rushing touchdowns during the 20–13 win. During the game, Gordon lost another fumble at the goal line.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: In Week 13 against the Kansas City Chiefs on "Sunday Night Football", Gordon recorded 15 carries for 131 rushing yards during the 22–16 loss.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: Overall, Gordon finished the 2020 season with 215 carries for 986 rushing yards and nine rushing touchdowns to go along with 32 receptions for 158 receiving yards and one receiving touchdown as the Broncos finished with a 5–11 record. While sharing with backfield with Phillip Lindsay and Royce Freeman, Gordon led the team in all major rushing categories.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: Gordon shared the backfield with rookie Javonte Williams in the 2021 season. In Week 1, against the New York Giants, he had 101 rushing yards, including a 70-yard rushing touchdown, in the 27–13 victory. In Week 14, he had 24 carries for 111 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns in the 38–10 victory over the Detroit Lions. Gordon finished the 2021 season with 203 carries for 918 rushing yards and eight rushing touchdowns to go along with 28 receptions for 213 receiving yards and two receiving touchdowns as the Broncos finished with a 7–10 record. Gordon and Williams proved to be one of the most productive backfield duos in the NFL for the 2021 season.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: On April 27, 2022, Gordon re-signed with the Broncos on a one-year deal. On November 21, the Broncos waived Gordon after a costly fumble against the Las Vegas Raiders, which was his fifth fumble of the season.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: In 2018, Gordon founded the Beyond the Flash Foundation, which is designed to help fight hunger and provide needy families with support. The foundation supports mission-aligned organizations in California, Colorado, and Wisconsin.


title: Melvin Gordon

text: Gordon was arrested in Denver for speeding and DUI on October 14, 2020. He posted a $55,000 cash bond. He pleaded not guilty to the charges on January 14, 2021. The DUI charge was dismissed on March 10, 2021, and Gordon instead pleaded guilty to speeding and reckless driving.


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: The Hurricane is a 1999 American biographical sports drama film directed and produced by Norman Jewison. The film stars Denzel Washington as Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter, a former middleweight boxer who was wrongly convicted for a triple murder in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey. The script was adapted by Armyan Bernstein and Dan Gordon from Carter's 1974 autobiography "The Sixteenth Round: From Number 1 Contender To 45472" and the 1991 non-fiction work "Lazarus and the Hurricane: The Freeing of Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter" by Sam Chaiton and Terry Swinton.


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: The film depicts Carter's arrest, his life in prison and how he was freed by the love and compassion of a teenager from Brooklyn named Lesra Martin and his Canadian foster family. The film received positive reviews and won several awards, including a Golden Globe for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama for Washington's performance. Washington was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: The film was released by Universal Pictures in the United States on December 29, 1999. It grossed $74 million against a budget of $50 million.


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: The film tells the story of middleweight boxer Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter, who was wrongfully convicted of committing a triple murder in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey. His sentence was set aside after he had spent nearly 20 years in prison. The film concentrates on Rubin Carter's life between 1966 and 1985. It describes his fight against the conviction for triple murder and how he copes with nearly 20 years in prison.


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: A parallel plot follows Lesra Martin, an underprivileged Afro-American youth from Brooklyn, now living in Toronto. In the 1980s, the child becomes interested in Carter's life and circumstances after reading Carter's autobiography. He convinces his Canadian foster family to commit themselves to Carter's case. The story culminates with Carter's legal team's successful pleas to Judge H. Lee Sarokin of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: In 1966, Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter was a top-ranked middleweight boxer, expected by many fans to become the world's greatest boxing champion. When three victims, specifically the club's bartender and a male and a female customer, were shot to death in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey, Carter and his friend John Artis, driving home from another club in Paterson, were stopped and interrogated by the police.


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: Although the police asserted that Carter and Artis were innocent and thus, "were never suspects," a man named Alfred Bello, a suspect himself in the killings, claimed that Carter and Artis were present at the time of the murders. On the basis of Bello's testimony, Carter and Artis were convicted of the triple homicide in the club, and Carter was given three consecutive life sentences.


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: Throughout the trial, Carter proclaimed his innocence, claiming that his race, his boxing career and status and his work as a civil rights activist were the real reasons for his conviction. Eight years later, Bello and a co-suspect, Arthur Bradley, who also claimed that Carter was present at the scene of the crimes, renounced and recanted their testimony. However, Carter and Artis were convicted once again.


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: Afterwards, the plot goes back to Lesra Martin, who works with a trio of Canadian activists to push the State of New Jersey to reexamine Carter's case.


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: In 1985, a Federal District Court ruled that the prosecution in Carter's second trial committed "grave constitutional violations" and that his conviction was based on racism rather than facts. As a result, Carter and later Artis were finally freed. Outside following the verdict, Carter summed up his story by saying, "Hate got me into this place, love got me out."


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: Norman Jewison became interested in a "Hurricane" Carter biopic in 1992. Armyan Bernstein purchased the filming rights through Beacon Pictures, and went on to write the first scripts while establishing a financing partnership with Irving Azoff. At first, Jewison felt the story was so extensive that it would fit better as a television miniseries.


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: Once Denzel Washington signed to play the title character, he went through long boxing training, and worked closely with Rubin Carter. Washington said, "He went through pots and pots of coffee and packs of cigarettes. I'd drink a little coffee. It's interesting and challenging when the person is there, alive and in the room."


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: Filming began in November 1998, with locations in both New Jersey – East Jersey State Prison in Trenton and the cities of Avenel and Paterson – and Toronto.


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: "The Hurricane" premiered on September 17, 1999, at the Toronto International Film Festival. It also was featured at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 17, 2000.


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: Two weeks prior to its opening in North America, a premiere for "The Hurricane" was held at the Mann Village Theater in Los Angeles. Many of the depicted people were in attendance. When asked about being portrayed by Denzel Washington, Rubin Carter replied that “I didn’t know I was that good-looking." The film was praised by Lesra Martin, who described it as "a stupendous depiction of accurate events", and John Artis, Carter's friend who was convicted with him, said he “was in awe to see what unfolded and not have to feel the pressure I felt at the time.” An objection was held by H. Lee Sarokin, the federal judge who freed Carter, saying that unlike his portrayal by Rod Steiger “I’m a lower-key guy.”


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: The film opened in North American limited release on December 29, 1999. The first week's gross was $384,640 (11 screens) and the total receipts for the run were $50,668,906. In its widest release the film was featured in 2,148 theaters. It closed the week of April 14, 2000. The motion picture was in circulation sixteen weeks.


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: "The Hurricane" has an 83% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 113 reviews. The consensus reads: "Thanks in large part to one of Denzel Washington's most powerful on-screen performances, "The Hurricane" is a moving, inspirational sports drama, even if it takes few risks in telling its story." Roger Ebert, film critic for the "Chicago Sun Times", liked the film and the acting, and wrote, "This is one of Denzel Washington's great performances, on a par with his work in "Malcolm X."... Washington as Hurricane Carter is spare, focused, filled with anger and pride... This is strong stuff, and I was amazed, after feeling some impatience in the earlier reaches of the film, to find myself so deeply absorbed in its second and third acts, until at the end I was blinking at tears. What affects me emotionally at the movies is never sadness, but goodness." Metacritic gave the score a film of 74 based on 30 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: Ebert discussed his perspective on the "fictionalized" aspects of the film: "Several people have told me dubiously that they heard the movie was 'fictionalized'. Well, of course it was. Those who seek the truth about a man from the film of his life might as well seek it from his loving grandmother. Most biopics, like most grandmothers, see the good in a man and demonize his enemies. They pass silently over his imprudent romances. In dramatizing his victories, they simplify them. And they provide the best roles to the most interesting characters. If they didn't, we wouldn't pay to see them." He added, ""The Hurricane" is not a documentary but a parable, in which two lives are saved by the power of the written word."


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: Film critic Stephen Holden, writing for "The New York Times", had mixed views of the film but praised the acting. He wrote: "In telling the story of Mr. Carter's protracted and ultimately successful fight for freedom and justice, "The Hurricane" rides to glory on an astonishing performance by Denzel Washington... That is to say, Mr. Washington leans into an otherwise schlocky movie and slams it out of the ballpark. If his Hurricane is an inspiring portrait of nobility, it is because the actor never conceals the demons of fury and despair gnawing beneath his character's forcefully articulate surface."


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: Alex von Tunzelmann, writing for The Guardian, gave the film a "B", but cited issues with historical accuracy, including depictions of Carter's military service, prior criminal record, and the Giardello fight. He also stated that the inclusion of negative aspects of Carter's life would not have made it acceptable "that he was wrongfully convicted of three murders."


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: Holden was forthright about the veracity of the film, writing, "The film is so eager to stir us up that it thinks little of bending the facts for dramatic effect. Among its most egregious distortions is its depiction of Mr. Carter's 1964 middleweight title match with Joey Giardello. The movie (which has fine, naturalistic boxing sequences) inaccurately portrays the fight as lost by Carter solely because of the judges' racism. The taking of such license, of course, adds an extra jolt of drama. But when these and other distortions and exaggerations are added up, it's worth wondering if that self-congratulatory glow the movie leaves us with has been gotten far too easily and at what cost."


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: Former middleweight World Champion Joey Giardello sued the film's producers for libel over the depiction of his fight with Carter as a "racist fix." Giardello stated: "Virtually every boxing expert then and now will tell you I won the fight." Referee Robert Polis who scored the fight 72–66 in Giardello's favor stated: "They portrayed Joey Giardello as an incompetent fighter. I thought it was ludicrous."


title: The Hurricane (1999 film)

text: Eventually, the case was settled out of court, with the producers paying the retired champion damages and with Jewison agreeing to make a statement on the DVD version that "Giardello no doubt was a great fighter."


title: University Challenge

text: University Challenge is a British television quiz programme which first aired in 1962. "University Challenge" aired for 913 episodes on ITV from 21 September 1962 to 31 December 1987, presented by quizmaster Bamber Gascoigne. The BBC revived the programme on 21 September 1994 with Jeremy Paxman as the quizmaster. Paxman will relinquish his role as host following the conclusion of the 52nd series in 2023, after which he will be succeeded by Amol Rajan. In October 2022, an ITV documentary, "Paxman: Putting Up With Parkinson's", revealed how the disease has impacted him and revealed that Paxman recorded his very last episode of "University Challenge" on 15 October 2022, which is to air sometime in 2023.


title: University Challenge

text: The show has always been produced by the same company (originally named Granada Television, renamed ITV Studios in 2009 and renamed again Lifted Entertainment in 2021), under licence from Richard Reid Productions and the College Bowl Company. It was recorded at Granada Studios in Manchester from its inception until the studios closed down in 2013; it is now recorded at Dock10 studios in Salford.


title: University Challenge

text: Despite periodic changes to the sets, studio layout, and presentation, "University Challenge" has preserved a high level of continuity from 1962 to the present. Some commentators have cited this as an essential element of its success. Elements of this continuity include:


title: University Challenge

text: The programme had its beginnings in an American television quiz show called "College Bowl". Cecil Bernstein, brother of Sidney Bernstein who founded Granada Television in 1954, had seen the programme in the United States and liked the format. It was decided that Granada would produce a similar programme with competing teams from universities across the United Kingdom. From its inception in 1962, "University Challenge" was hosted by Bamber Gascoigne, who died in 2022. The show was a cult favourite with a small but loyal core audience, and was one of a select few ITV programmes that was transmitted without any advertising breaks. Originally, the series started off in many areas, being broadcast at peak times or just after the nightly news around 22:30; by the early 1970s, the series was relegated to irregular timeslots by the various ITV regional companies, with some broadcasting the show during daytime, at weekends or late at night. In the absence of a regular networked slot, audience figures would often fall, leading the producers to make changes to the long-standing format of the programme. LWT stopped broadcasting the show in October 1983, with Thames following suit shortly afterwards. The programme was not broadcast in 1985 and returned in April 1986, when it was finally networked by ITV and broadcast at 15:00 on weekdays. The gameplay was revised, initial games were staged over two legs; the first in the classic format and the second played as a relay, where contestants selected questions from specific categories such as sport, literature and science, passing a baton between players whenever a "lap" of two correct answers was scored. The final series was also networked, but broadcast around 11:00 during the summer holiday period. Even so, the new networked time did little to save the series from the axe. The last ITV series was broadcast in 1987.


title: University Challenge

text: The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge could each enter up to five of their constituent colleges as separate teams, which are not themselves universities: they have far fewer students – numbering in the hundreds rather than thousands – than most universities. This was one ostensible inspiration for a 1975 protest, in which a team from the University of Manchester (which included David Aaronovitch) came second to Downing College, Cambridge, when they started a round by answering every question "Che Guevara", "Marx", "Trotsky" or "Lenin", in the hope of making the resulting show unbroadcastable.


title: University Challenge

text: It did, however, get broadcast, although only portions of the episode still exist in the Granada Television archives. Granada subsequently banned the University of Manchester for several years.


title: University Challenge

text: "University Challenge" was revived by the BBC in 1994, although still produced by Granada Television (branded since 2009 as ITV Studios), using the original format, with minor differences, and presented by Jeremy Paxman.


title: University Challenge

text: During the show's hiatus, a special edition of the show was made by the BBC, as part of a themed evening of programmes dedicated to Granada Television. It was presented by Bamber Gascoigne and broadcast on BBC2 on 28 December 1992. The teams included one of students from Keble College, Oxford, which had fielded the winning team in the final 1987 season, and a graduates team of celebrity alumni who had previously appeared on the programme as students, including journalist John Simpson and actor Stephen Fry. This show was preceded by a short documentary about the show's history. Bamber Gascoigne's final appearance as host was in "Universe Challenge" in 1998 (see below).


title: University Challenge

text: Since its revival in 1994, the programme has featured a number of teams of postgraduate and mature students, whose participation has been criticised. The Open University won the 1999 series with a team with an average age of 46. In the quarter-final, they narrowly beat a slightly younger team from part-time and mature student specialist Birkbeck, University of London. Birkbeck won the competition in 2003, also with a substantially mature team. Host Jeremy Paxman said that the Open University team was "not in the spirit" of the competition. The team publicly replied by challenging him to specify in what way this was "contrary to the spirit of the quiz – or of the university".


title: University Challenge

text: In 2009, Sam Kay, part of the team from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was accused of not being a student when the show was filmed. Kay, who had completed a chemistry degree the previous summer, had been planning to go on to study for a Doctor of Philosophy, but dropped out as he did not have sufficient funding. He then became an accountant. The team, whose captain Gail Trimble was dubbed the "human Google", won the competition but was subsequently disqualified and the trophy awarded to the runners-up, the University of Manchester.


title: University Challenge

text: A few days later, it was also revealed that Charles Markland, a member of the 2008 winning team from Christ Church, Oxford, had transferred his studies to Balliol College halfway through the series. He said that his team captain had contacted a researcher concerning the situation, and had been told that this was not a problem and that the same team should be maintained for continuity purposes. It was also revealed that Freya McClements, captain of the 2004 winning team from Magdalen College, Oxford, was at the time studying at Trinity College, Dublin. Although it was mentioned in a BBC news story at the time, no action was taken because the BBC stated that the facts had not been brought to their attention.


title: University Challenge

text: In 2016, at the Henley Literary Festival, Jeremy Paxman said that, when students were unable to answer several consecutive starter questions, those questions were often deleted before the show is broadcast.


title: University Challenge

text: Teams consist of four members and most represent a single university. The exceptions to this are colleges of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, which enter independent teams. While a number of other British universities have constituent colleges, only those where some teaching is undertaken at the college level may enter independent teams. The competing teams each year are selected by the show's producers, based both on scores from a general trivia quiz and the producers' judging of the suitability of the teams for television. Durham University has appeared most frequently in the post-1994 format.


title: University Challenge

text: The contestants are identified by their surnames during gameplay, apart from at the beginning when they introduce themselves with their full names, where they are from and what they are studying.


title: University Challenge

text: The teams generally consist of mixed genders, mostly young adults but with some mature students also appearing.


title: University Challenge

text: The current tournament format used for each series is that of a direct knockout tournament starting with 28 teams. The fourteen first-round winners progress directly to the last sixteen. Two matches, involving the four highest scoring losing teams from the first round, whose losing scores often exceed winning scores in other first-round matches, fill the remaining places in the last sixteen. Teams in the quarter-final round (last eight teams) have to win two matches in the round to progress to the semi-finals. Equally, teams must lose two quarter-final matches in order to be eliminated from that round. The pairings for matches are often chosen in order to keep stronger teams apart.


title: University Challenge

text: Starter questions are answered individually and are worth ten points. The catchphrase "your starter for ten" inspired David Nicholls' 2003 novel "Starter for Ten" and the 2006 film based on it starring James McAvoy. An incorrect interruption of a starter question incurs a five-point penalty; during the Gascoigne era this took the form of five points being awarded to the opposing team, whereas in the Paxman era five points are deducted from the interrupting team.


title: University Challenge

text: The team answering a starter correctly gets a set of three bonus questions worth a potential fifteen points, for which they can confer. Sets of bonus questions are thematically linked. They rarely share a connection with the preceding starter question, except when they are bonuses following a picture or music question. Generally, there are three separate bonus questions worth five points each, but occasionally a bonus will require the enumeration of a given list with five, ten or fifteen points given for correctly giving a certain number of items from the list (for example, "there are seven fundamental SI units. Give five for five points, six for ten points or all seven for fifteen points"). It is the team captain's responsibility to give the answer to the bonus questions unless another member of the team is specified with the phrase "Nominate [name]". The team member so named may then give the answer instead.


title: University Challenge

text: In the course of a game there are two picture rounds (occurring roughly one quarter and three-quarters of the way through) and one music round (at the halfway point), where the subsequent bonuses are connected thematically to the starter; if a picture or music starter is not correctly answered, the accompanying bonus questions are held back until a normal starter is correctly answered. Usually, in the recent contests, the first picture round focuses on science and technology, geography, and languages, while the second picture round focuses on art, film, television, and literature. The 2010 Manchester University team included a visually impaired student, Rachael Neiman, and the picture rounds in episodes involving the team were word puzzles for which she was provided with Braille transcriptions. Pieces of music played for the music round may be classical or popular – for example, on 25 July 2011, the pieces played were winners of the Eurovision Song Contest. Occasionally, audio clips other than music (e.g. speech, animal sounds or other field recordings) are used.


title: University Challenge

text: The pace of questioning gradually increases through the show. The sound of a gong signals the end of the game. At this point, the game immediately ends, even if Paxman is halfway through asking a question. In the event of a tied score at the sound of the gong, a sudden death question is asked, the first team to answer correctly being deemed the winner; this is repeated until one or other of the teams answers correctly, or a team loses by giving an incorrect interruption. The ending of the programme is usually signified with Jeremy Paxman saying "It's goodbye from ([name of losing team], who say goodbye), it's goodbye from ([name of winning team], likewise), and it's goodbye from me: goodbye!"


title: University Challenge

text: While the starter questions are being read out, the teams are shown on screen one above the other by means of a split-screen effect. When a player buzzes in, the shot zooms in to that player, accompanied by a voiceover identifying the player by team and surname, for example "Nottingham, Munro". The voiceovers are performed live in the studio by Roger Tilling and become more energetic towards the end of the programme. The 1986 series experimented with an actual two-tier set, which was discontinued the following year.


title: University Challenge

text: "Notable contestants in the regular student competition. Special Celebrity Christmas editions, where all competitors are distinguished, are excluded."


title: University Challenge

text: The University of Manchester, Magdalen College, Oxford, and Imperial College London have the highest number of wins, with four each. The University of Manchester and Magdalen College, Oxford are also the only teams to successfully defend the title the year after their win (Manchester's 2009 win came only after the original winner was disqualified). Trinity College, Cambridge, holds three titles, and a further seven institutions have two titles: Durham, Sussex, the Open University, Sidney Sussex–Cambridge, Keble–Oxford, University–Oxford and Warwick.


title: University Challenge

text: Little is known about the lowest scores from the Bamber Gascoigne series, except that the lowest score ever was in the 1971–72 season, when the University of Sussex, fresh from two series wins, managed only 10 points. However, a low score was also achieved by Victoria University of Manchester in their first round match in 1975 when, for much of the recording, they answered only with the names of Marxists as a protest against the Oxford and Cambridge colleges being able to enter separate teams.


title: University Challenge

text: Under Jeremy Paxman, the lowest score achieved by a student team is also 10 which, coincidentally, was also achieved by a team from the University of Sussex, in the first round of the 2021–22 series when they faced the University of Birmingham who scored 245. In the same series, the lowest winning score for a student team was achieved, by Emmanuel College, Cambridge, who scored 85 in a quarter final against King's College London who scored 80. The second lowest losing score is 15, which was achieved by the University of Exeter in a 2008–09 quarter-final against Corpus Christi, Oxford, whose team captain Gail Trimble amassed 15 correct starter questions. However, the Corpus Christi team were later disqualified from the competition after it was found that team member Sam Kay had been ineligible for the last three matches. Therefore, the second lowest score officially achieved against eligible opponents under quizmaster Jeremy Paxman was by Lincoln College, Oxford, who totalled 30 in a semi-final against the eventual series champions the University of Manchester, in an episode televised on 9 February 2009, just two weeks after the Corpus Christi vs Exeter match. This was also matched in the grand final by St John's College, Oxford, against Peterhouse, Cambridge, on 18 April 2016.


title: University Challenge

text: Before these matches, the lowest score was 35, reached by New Hall, Cambridge, 1997. This score would have been lower if all fines for incorrect interruptions had been applied.


title: University Challenge

text: The lowest score during the "Professionals" series was achieved by the House of Commons team, who scored 25 in 2003. In the 2014 "Christmas University Challenge" series, a team of alumni from Newcastle University also finished with 25.


title: University Challenge

text: An all-time record low score for the series was achieved in the final of the 2017 "Christmas" series, when Keble College, Oxford, beat the University of Reading 240–0. The previous year's "Christmas" series saw the lowest winning score of all time, 75, scored by the University of Nottingham, who defeated their opponents, the University of Bristol, by just five points.


title: University Challenge

text: In the Jeremy Paxman era, the team from Open University scored the highest score, 415, in the semi-final in 1997 against Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School.


title: University Challenge

text: The producers of the programme have taken the more recent inclusion of mature students to its logical conclusion by making two series without any student participants: "University Challenge Reunited" (2002) brought former teams back together, while "University Challenge: The Professionals" (from 2003) matched occupational groups such as civil servants, architects and doctors against each other. In 2003, the former was won by the 1979 team from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, the latter by a team from the Inland Revenue. The 2004 "Professionals" series was won by the British Library, and the 2005 series by the Privy Council Office. In 2006, "Professionals" was won by staff of the Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford.


title: University Challenge

text: The show has seen numerous specials, including those for specific professions and celebrity editions, such as "Universe Challenge", presented by former host and Red Dwarf fan, Bamber Gascoigne, where the cast of "Red Dwarf" challenged a team of their "ultimate fans" to celebrate "Red Dwarf"'s 10th anniversary on the air. The cast was Chris Barrie (captain), Danny John-Jules, Robert Llewellyn, Chloë Annett and Craig Charles. The cast, who at times seemed amazed at the fans' knowledge, lost, but by only 15 points, 280–295.


title: University Challenge

text: "Sixth Form Challenge", hosted by Chris Kelly, appeared briefly between 1965 and 1967. The sixth form contestants represented leading public schools and grammar schools. An untelevised version, "Schools' Challenge", continues to run at junior and senior secondary school levels.


title: University Challenge

text: Challenging Times was a quiz show for teams representing higher education institutes in Ireland, televised by RTÉ from 1991 to 2001.


title: University Challenge

text: "University Challenge" ran in New Zealand for 14 seasons, from 1976 until 1989, with international series held between the previous years' British and New Zealand champions in both 1986 and 1987. It was hosted by Peter Sinclair. The series was revived in 2014 with Tom Conroy as host.


title: University Challenge

text: "University Challenge", hosted by Magnus Clarke, ran in Australia on the ABC from 1987 until 1989. In the 1988 series, the University of New South Wales defeated the University of Melbourne in the final by 245 points to 175.


title: University Challenge

text: "University Challenge India" started in summer 2003, with the season culminating in the finals of March 2004 where Sardar Patel College of Engineering (SPCE), Mumbai, beat Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. The 2004–2005 season finale saw a team of undergraduate engineering students from Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (NSIT), Delhi, beat a team of management students from the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode. The Indian winners of the 2003–2004 season went on to beat the finalists from the UK show, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. UC India is produced by BBC World India, and Synergy Communications, co-owned by Siddhartha Basu, who also hosted the show.


title: University Challenge

text: University Challenge inspired the format of two Dutch-language shows: "Universiteitsstrijd" (the Netherlands), which ran for one season in 2016 on NTR, and (Belgium), which ran since 2019 on Canvas.


title: Teddy Altman

text: Theodora Grace Altman, M.D., F.A.C.S is a fictional character from the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy". The character was created by series' producer Shonda Rhimes, and is portrayed by Kim Raver. She was introduced as a recurring character in season 6, but is later upgraded to series-regular in the same season after Katherine Heigl's departure from the series.


title: Teddy Altman

text: Altman was conceived as the third major attending cardiothoracic surgeon in the series, following Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington) and Erica Hahn's (Brooke Smith) exits. In the storyline, Altman is a gift for Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh), recommended by Oh's character's love-interest, Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd), to practice Cardiothoracic Surgery in her residency, after failing to receive practice from Hahn after Burke's departure. Yang discovers there is more than meets the eye with Owen and Teddy as friends, leading to a brief love-triangle. Other storylines include Altman's relationship with a psychologist and later marrying a patient to take care of his health care, eventually falling in love with him. Raver's first tenure in the show lasted 3 consecutive seasons (2009–2012), with her final appearance being the season 8 finale.


title: Teddy Altman

text: Altman is mentioned for the first time again 5 years later when Owen discovers his sister, Megan is still alive and Altman reportedly bears witness in identifying her in the season 13 finale. Raver reappears in 5 episodes of season 14, then is upgraded again to series-regular in the season 15, following a storyline involving her pregnancy with McKidd's character. Since her second promotion to series-regular, her storylines have included being caught in 2 love-triangles with Owen and his ex-wife Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone), and Owen and Tom Koracick (Greg Germann). The character is also later revealed to be bisexual, with secret lover Allison who died in 9/11, shown to be a romantic partner in a flashback.


title: Teddy Altman

text: Teddy attended the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She completed her surgical residency at George Washington University Medical School and her fellowship at Mayo Clinic in Florida. As an attending physician, Teddy worked at Columbia, but after her best friend and lover Allison was killed during the collapse of the second tower on September 11, 2001, she left and joined the army, meeting trauma surgeon Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) during her tour in Baghdad.


title: Teddy Altman

text: Owen brings Teddy to Seattle Grace Mercy West hospital to mentor his girlfriend, Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh). Teddy admits that she is in love with Owen, but he tells her that he loves Cristina. When Teddy assigns Cristina a difficult surgery for her first solo cardiothoracic case and refuses to assist, Owen questions Teddy's motives. Teddy decides to leave Seattle Grace; Cristina pleads with her to stay, even offering to break up with Owen if Teddy will continue to teach her. Although Teddy agrees to stay, Owen convinces Cristina to stay with him, and Teddy briefly removes her from her service.


title: Teddy Altman

text: Teddy develops a friendship with pediatric surgeon Arizona Robbins (Jessica Capshaw), who sets her up with plastic surgeon Mark Sloan (Eric Dane). They have a brief relationship, which they both enjoy despite knowing that neither wants the other—Teddy still wants Owen, and Mark is in love with Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh). The two separate amicably when Teddy walks in on Mark sleeping with resident Reed Adamson (Nora Zehetner).


title: Teddy Altman

text: Towards the end of season six, Teddy has to fight for her job as Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery. Cristina asks Owen to put in a good word for Teddy; he does the opposite by telling Chief of Surgery Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) that she would land on her feet. Ultimately another candidate refuses to take the post and Teddy receives a full-time contract. Teddy later learns of, and is hurt by Owen's betrayal.


title: Teddy Altman

text: Teddy has a brief relationship with Andrew Perkins, whose service at the hospital is temporary. Before his departure, he suggests that Teddy has a tendency to fall for people who are either otherwise engaged or only in town for a month. She later meets Henry Burton (Scott Foley), a patient with the rare genetic condition Von Hippel–Lindau disease, who can no longer afford to pay for his medical care. Teddy marries him so that he can use her health insurance, and only comes to appreciate the gravity of this decision when Henry suffers a near fatal complication of his illness. Teddy discovers that he has listed her as his emergency contact and is forced to make a life-or-death decision regarding his care, not as his doctor but as his wife. Though the newly-weds both maintain that theirs is a simple marriage of convenience, and Teddy continues to date other men, Henry later confesses that he has feelings for Teddy. She tells him she does not feel the same way.


title: Teddy Altman

text: Teddy again removes Cristina from her service when she performs a surgery despite Teddy's opposition. She tells Owen that Cristina's over-abundance of confidence makes her dangerous, and that she will keep Cristina off her service until she feels she is ready to return. When Andrew returns and asks Teddy to move to Germany with him, she accepts, and agrees to divorce Henry. However, in the seventh season finale, Teddy changes her mind and tells Henry that she is falling in love with him. The two begin their married life properly, but in season eight, Henry dies, leaving Teddy distraught. She blames Owen because she wasn't told that Henry had died until after her surgery on another patient. Feeling that he put the hospital before her, she breaks off her friendship with him, causing problems with them being able to work together that are later made worse by Cristina's own relationship troubles with Owen (During this time, Cristina tells Owen that he has to grant Teddy her anger, to which an enraged Owen lashes out the hypocrisy in the situation, given that when Cristina discovered she was pregnant with Owen's child, she told him that keeping the pregnancy was non negotiable and wanted to pursue an abortion, despite Owen's desire to have a child, and his pleas to keep the pregnancy, points out that Cristina never "granted him any anger" over what he thought was her selfish decision). After a particularly bad case, Bailey sternly tells Teddy that what happened with Henry was not Owen's fault and that Teddy knows this and needs to get over it, which pushes Teddy to behave more civilly towards Owen, but she finally lets go of her anger after she desperately begs Owen to convince Cristina (who by this point has broken up with him) to not transfer away from Seattle and is left shocked and silent when Owen furiously tells her he will not do that because he and Teddy are only co-workers and, as she made very clear, not friends and therefore she has no right to ask him for any help or favors. She and Owen eventually make up in the season finale. Owen finds out she was offered a job at the United States Army Medical Command, but turned it down because she wanted to be there for Owen, if he and Cristina were to separate. He ultimately fires her and she does take the military job, and tells her that he'll be okay as they part having restored their friendship. Teddy and Owen make up and hug each other goodbye as he wants her to take the job offer, which would be good for her.


title: Teddy Altman

text: Teddy is later mentioned in season thirteen episode, "True Colors", when army officers speak to Amelia about the return of Owen's missing sister, Megan, whom Teddy knew while serving.


title: Teddy Altman

text: In Season 14, following the split between Amelia and Owen, in which Amelia tells Owen to profess his love for Teddy, Owen travels to Germany to be with her. In Germany, Teddy and Owen sleep together, but after the two fight over their history, Teddy sends Owen on his way. In the season finale, Teddy returns to Grey Sloan, and it is revealed that she is pregnant with Owen's baby.


title: Teddy Altman

text: During the 15th season, Teddy, now heavily pregnant with Owen's baby, gets involved with Tom Koracick, an attending neurosurgeon at Grey Sloan. Teddy and Tom's relationship quickly progresses, much to Owen's dismay, with Tom offering to help Teddy with the baby once she gives birth. However, though Teddy recognizes how right Tom is for her, she realizes that she is still in love with Owen. In the Season 15 finale, Teddy gives birth to her and Owen's daughter, whom they both have named Allison, in honor of Teddy's best-friend Allison Brown, who died during 9/11. Having broken up with Tom, Teddy admits her feelings to Owen, who reciprocates.


title: Teddy Altman

text: In the 16th season, as Teddy and Owen plan to get married, Teddy struggles with being a new mother, and because she misses working, Owen offers to take time off as well. When Teddy learns that Owen might be the father of Amelia's baby, she runs back to Tom, and they begin to have an affair. It is later revealed that Owen is not the father, but Teddy and Tom still continue to sneak behind Owen's back. Towards the end of the season, Teddy travels to L.A. with a couple other surgeons from Grey Sloan for a medical conference, and she reminisces on her relationship with Allison, who was also her secret lover. At the end of the season, Teddy and Owen prepare for their wedding, but on the day of, Teddy accidentally sends Owen a voicemail of her and Tom having sex, and Owen postpones the wedding.


title: Teddy Altman

text: In Season 17, Owen breaks off his engagement from Teddy and is unable to forgive her for cheating. Teddy is put on Meredith's COVID-19 case, and Meredith's worsening health drains Teddy physically and mentally. As Teddy continues to overwork herself, she finds herself ostracized at the hospital, as everyone has heard about her infidelity. Teddy reaches her breaking point when she is unable to save Andrew DeLuca, who dies from a stabbing wound from a child predator. This causes Teddy to go into a catatonic state, where she experiences nightmares and "what-ifs" about her past relationships. She is eventually able to start getting better, and at the same time, Owen offers her his friendship. Towards the end of the season, Owen and Teddy begin sleeping with each other again, and in the season finale, Owen proposes to Teddy, which she accepts.


title: Teddy Altman

text: In the beginning of Season 18, Teddy and Owen got married at the Emerald City Bar after their wedding at the Park was interrupted by a bicycle accident. After Owen's near-fatal car crash, she assists him with giving illegal drugs to dying soldiers. At the end of the season, she and Owen are reported for their actions and are seen taking a plane, now on the run. In Station 19's fifth season, she guest stars to aid show lead Andy Herrera's assaulter.


title: Teddy Altman

text: In October 2009, it was reported that actress Kim Raver would play the character and have a recurring role on the show's sixth season. In January 2010, Raver was promoted to a series-regular.


title: Teddy Altman

text: On May 18, 2012, the day after the season 8 finale, "Grey's Anatomy" creator, Shonda Rhimes, announced that it was Raver's decision to leave the show, "I know this season's finale had some surprises for viewers and the exit of Kim Raver was one of the big ones. But Kim's series option was up and she was ready to give Teddy Altman a much-needed vacation. It's been a pleasure working with someone as talented and funny and kind as Kim; everyone is going to miss her terribly. I like to imagine that Teddy is still out there in the "Grey's Anatomy" universe, running Army Medical Command and building a new life." When the news of the character's departure was released, Raver wrote on her Twitter, "I've had one of the best times of my creative career working on "Grey's" with Shonda, Betsy and the best cast on television," she wrote, adding: "I feel fortunate and grateful to have worked with such an amazing team at "GA" ["Grey's Anatomy"]. [I] am going to miss everyone!! And to the "GA" ["Grey's Anatomy"] fans, you guys rock! I am sure S9 [season 9] will be great!"


title: Teddy Altman

text: On June 20, 2017, it was announced that Raver would be reprising her role as Teddy Altman for a guest arc during the show's 14th season.


title: Teddy Altman

text: After recurring in Season 14, it was announced that Raver would once again be a series-regular in Season 15.


title: Teddy Altman

text: "Entertainment Weekly" writer Tanner Stransky found Altman had not been given a good storyline until the arrival of Henry: "I think Kim Raver has always been rather under-used on this show, until more recently."


title: Fabián Ruiz

text: Fabián Ruiz Peña (; born 3 April 1996), simply known as Fabián, is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a central midfielder for Ligue 1 club Paris Saint-Germain and the Spain national team.


title: Fabián Ruiz

text: Born in Los Palacios y Villafranca, Seville, Andalusia, Fabián joined Real Betis' youth setup in 2004, aged eight, after starting it out at EF La Unión de Los Palacios. He was promoted to the reserves in July 2014, and made his senior debut on 21 September, coming on as a second half substitute in a 4–1 home loss against Marbella in the Segunda División B championship.


title: Fabián Ruiz

text: Fabián played his first match as a professional on 16 December, replacing Xavi Torres in the 51st minute of a 1–0 Segunda División away win against Lugo. He appeared in six matches during the season, as his side achieved promotion to La Liga as champions.


title: Fabián Ruiz

text: Fabián made his debut in the main category of Spanish football on 23 August 2015, coming on as a substitute for Alfred N'Diaye in a 1–1 home draw against Villarreal.


title: Fabián Ruiz

text: On 23 December of the following year he renewed his contract until 2019, and was immediately loaned to Elche in the second level. He scored his first professional goal on 17 March 2017, netting the first in a 3–1 away win against Gimnàstic de Tarragona.


title: Fabián Ruiz

text: Upon returning, Fabián became a regular starter under new manager Quique Setién, scoring his first goal in the top tier on 25 September 2017 in a 4–0 home routing of Levante. The following 31 January, he renewed his contract until 2023, setting his buyout clause at €30 million.


title: Fabián Ruiz

text: On 30 April 2018, Fabián scored the winning goal for Betis as they secured UEFA Europa League qualification for the 2018–19 season following a 2–1 home win over Málaga.


title: Fabián Ruiz

text: On 5 July 2018, Fabián joined Napoli on a five-year contract until 2023 with Napoli reportedly paying Fabián's €30 million buyout clause. He made his debut on 16 September in a Champions League group game away to Red Star Belgrade, playing the full 90 minutes of a goalless draw. Ten days later he played his first Serie A match and first at the Stadio San Paolo, a 3–0 win over Parma.


title: Fabián Ruiz

text: On 30 August 2022, Fabián signed for Ligue 1 club Paris Saint-Germain on a five-year contract. He made his debut as a substitute in a 1–0 league victory over Brest at the Parc des Princes on 10 September.


title: Fabián Ruiz

text: After representing Spain at under-19 and under-21 levels, Fabián was called up to the full side by manager Luis Enrique on 15 March 2019, for two UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying matches against Norway and Malta.


title: Fabián Ruiz

text: He made his debut on 7 June 2019 in a Euro 2020 qualifier against Faroe Islands, as a 74th-minute substitute for Isco.


title: Fabián Ruiz

text: A left-footed central midfielder, Fabián is known for his vision, passing, ball control and dribbling skills, as well as his tactical versatility, and can play in a number of formations,


title: Fabián Ruiz

text: such as 4–4–2, 4–3–3, and 4–2–3–1. He can also play as a defensive midfielder or an attacking midfielder.


title: Peer pressure

text: Peer pressure is the direct or indirect influence on peers, i.e., members of social groups with similar interests, experiences, or social statuses. Members of a peer group are more likely to influence a person's beliefs, values, and behavior. A group or individual may be encouraged and want to follow their peers by changing their attitudes, values or behaviors to conform to those of the influencing group or individual.


title: Peer pressure

text: For the individual affected by peer pressure, this can have both a positive or negative influence on them.


title: Peer pressure

text: Social groups include both "membership groups" in which individuals hold "formal" membership (e.g. political parties, trade unions, schools) and cliques in which membership is less clearly defined.


title: Peer pressure

text: However, a person does not need to be a member or be seeking membership of a group to be affected by peer pressure. An individual can be in a crowd, a group of many cliques, and still be affected by peer pressure.


title: Peer pressure

text: Research suggests that organizations as well as individuals are susceptible to peer pressure. For example, an organization may base a decision off of the current trends to receive more likeability or grow a following.


title: Peer pressure

text: Peer pressure can affect individuals of all ethnicities, genders and ages. Researchers have frequently studied the effects of peer pressure on children and on adolescents, and in popular discourse the term "peer pressure" is used most often with reference to those age-groups. It's important to understand that for children of adolescent age, they are faced with finding their identity. Erikson, a sociopsychologist, explains that identity is faced with role confusion, in other words, these children are trying to find a sense of belonging and are the most susceptible to peer pressure as a form of acceptance. For children, the themes most commonly studied are their abilities for independent decision-making. For adolescents, peer pressure's relationships to sexual intercourse and substance abuse have been significantly researched.


title: Peer pressure

text: Peer pressure can be experienced through both face-to-face interaction and through digital interaction. Social media offers opportunities for adolescents and adults alike to instill and/or experience pressure every day.


title: Peer pressure

text: Studies of social networks examine connections between members of social groups, including their use of social media, to better understand mechanisms such as information sharing and peer sanctioning. Sanctions can range from subtle glances that suggest disapproval, to threats and physical violence. Peer sanctioning may enhance either positive or negative behaviors. Whether peer sanctioning will have an effect depends strongly on members' expectations and the possible sanctions actually being applied. It can also depend on a person's position in a social network. Those who are more central in a social network seem more likely to be cooperative, perhaps as a result of how networks form. However, this goes both ways and so they are also more likely to participate in negative behaviors. This may be caused by the repeated social pressures they experience in their networks.


title: Peer pressure

text: Imitation plays a large role in children's lives; in order to pick up skills and techniques that they use in their own life, children are always searching for behaviors and attitudes around them that they can co-opt. In other words, children get influenced by people that are important in their lives such as friends, parents and even YouTubers, celebrities, singers, dancers, etc. This may explain why children with parents who eat unhealthy or don't live active lifestyles can conform to creating habits just like their parents as young adults. Children are aware of their position in the social hierarchy from a young age: their instinct is to defer to adults' judgements and majority opinions. Similar to the Asch conformity experiments, a study done on groups of preschool children showed that they were influenced by groups of their peers to change their opinion to a demonstrably wrong one.


title: Peer pressure

text: Each child was handed a book with two sets of images on each page, with a groups of differently sized animals on the left hand page and one animal on the right hand, and each child was asked to indicate the size of the lone animal. All the books appeared the same, but the last child would sometimes get a book that was different. The children reported their size judgements in turn, and the child being tested was asked last. Before the child was to be tested, however, there was a group of children working in conjunction with the researchers. Sometimes, the children who answered before the test subject all gave an incorrect answer. When asked in the presence of the other children, the last child's response was often the same as his or her peers. However, when allowed to privately share their responses with a researcher the children proved much more resistant to their peers' pressure, illustrating the importance of the physical presence of their peers in shaping their opinions.


title: Peer pressure

text: An insight is that children can monitor and intervene in their peers' behavior through pressure. A study conducted in a remedial kindergarten class, in the Edna A. Hill Child Development Laboratory at the University of Kansas, was designed to measure how children could ease disruptive behavior in their peers through a two-part system. After describing a series of tasks to their classroom that included going to the bathroom, cleaning up, and general classroom behavior, teachers and researchers would observe children's performance on the tasks. The study focused on three children who were clearly identified as being more disruptive than their peers. They looked at their responses to potential techniques. They utilized the two-part system: first, each student would be given points by their teachers for correctly completing tasks with little disruption (e.g. sitting down on a mat for reading time), and if a student reached three points by the end of the day they would receive a prize. The second part brought in peer interaction, where students who reached three points were appointed "peer monitors" whose role was to lead their small groups and assign points at the end of the day. The results were clear-cut, showing that the monitored students' disruption dropped when teachers started the points system and monitored them, but when peer monitors were introduced the target students' disruption dropped to average rates of 1% for student C1, 8% for student C2, and 11% for student C3 (down from 36%, 62%, and 59%, respectively). Even small children, then, are susceptible to pressure from their peers, and that pressure can be used to effect positive change in academic and social environments.


title: Peer pressure

text: Adolescence is the time when a person is most susceptible to peer pressure because peers become an important influence on behavior during adolescence, and peer pressure has been called a hallmark of adolescent experience. Children entering this period in life become aware for the first time of the other people around them and realize the importance of perception in their interactions. Peer conformity in young people is most pronounced with respect to style, taste, appearance, ideology, and values. Peer pressure is commonly associated with episodes of adolescent risk taking because these activities commonly occur in the company of peers. Affiliation with friends who engage in risk behaviors has been shown to be a strong predictor of an adolescent's own behavior. Peer pressure can also have positive effects when youth are pressured by their peers toward positive behavior, such as volunteering for charity, excelling in academics, or participating in a service project. The importance of peers declines upon entering adulthood.


title: Peer pressure

text: Even though socially accepted children are more prone to experience higher, more frequent, positive fulfillments and participate in more opportunities, research shows that social acceptance (being in the popular crowd) may increase the likelihood of engaging in risky behavior, depending on the norms in the group. Groups of popular children showed a propensity to increase risky, drug-related and delinquent behavior when this behavior was likely to receive approval in their groups. Peer pressure was greatest among more popular children because they were the children most attuned to the judgments of their peers, making them more susceptible to group pressures. Gender also has a clear effect on the amount of peer pressure an adolescent experiences: girls report significantly higher pressures to conform to their groups in the form of clothing choices or speech patterns. Additionally, girls and boys reported facing differing amounts of pressures in different areas of their lives, perhaps reflecting a different set of values and priorities for each gender. Both boys and girls are susceptible to peer pressure, but what it revolves around is defining the values, beliefs, or attitudes that their peer groups have or deeply desire. For girls, it definitely revolves around how they look, whereas for boys, it might come down to athleticism or intellect. Either way peer pressure tends to follow the trends with the current world.


title: Peer pressure

text: Peer pressure is widely recognized as a major contributor to the initiation of drug use, particularly in adolescence. This has been shown for a variety of substances, including nicotine and alcohol. While this link is well established, moderating factors do exist. For example, parental monitoring is negatively associated with substance use; yet when there is little monitoring, adolescents are more likely to succumb to peer coercion during initiation to substance use, but not during the transition from experimental to regular use. Caldwell and colleagues extended this work by finding that peer pressure was a factor leading to heightened risk in the context of social gatherings with little parental monitoring, and if the individual reported themselves as vulnerable to peer pressure. Conversely, some research has observed that peer pressure can be a protective factor against substance use.


title: Peer pressure

text: Peer pressure produces a wide array of negative outcomes. Allen and colleagues showed that susceptibility to peer pressure in 13- and 14-year-olds was predictive of not only future response to peer pressure, but also a wider array of functioning. For example, greater depression symptomatology, decreasing popularity, more sexual behavior, and externalizing behavior were greater for more susceptible teens. Of note, substance use was also predicted by peer pressure susceptibility such that greater susceptibility was predictive of greater alcohol and drug use.


title: Peer pressure

text: Substance use is likely not attributed to peer pressure alone. Evidence of genetic predispositions for substance use exists and some have begun to examine gene x environment interactions for peer influence. In a nationally representative sample, adolescents who had genetic predisposition were more likely to have good friends who were heavy substance users and were furthermore, more likely to be vulnerable to the adverse influence of these friends. Results from specific candidate gene studies have been mixed. For instance, in a study of nicotine use Johnson and colleagues found that peer smoking had a lower effect on nicotine dependence for those with the high risk allele (CHRNA5). This suggests that social contexts do not play a significant role in substance use initiation and maintenance and that interventions for these individuals should be developed with genetics in mind as well.


title: Peer pressure

text: Though the impact of peer influence in adolescence has been well established, it was unclear at what age this effect begins to diminish. It is accepted that such peer pressure to use alcohol or illicit substances is less likely to exist in elementary school and very young adolescents given the limited access and exposure. Using the Resistance to Peer Influence Scale, Sumter and colleagues found that resistance to peer pressure grew as age increased in a large study of 10- to 18-year-old. This study also found that girls were generally more resistant to peer influence than boys, particularly at mid-adolescence (i.e. ages 13–15). The higher vulnerability to peer pressure for teenage boys makes sense given the higher rates of substance use in male teens. For girls, increased and positive parental behaviors (e.g. parental social support, consistent discipline) have been shown to be an important contributor to the ability to resist peer pressure to use substances.


title: Peer pressure

text: It is believed that peer pressure of excessive drinking in college comes down to three factors: being offered alcohol, modeling and social norms. Offering alcohol can be both a kind gesture or the other extreme which is forceful. Modeling is being a “copycat” and following your friends then finally you have the social norms which are drinking. There are two reasons why people do it; because everyone does it, or as a means to fit into social groups. On entering college most people begin to increase their amount of alcohol intake, this is more so true to those who do not live at home. This would be because you have shifted from being influenced by your parents to being influenced by your college peers.


title: Peer pressure

text: Substance use prevention and intervention programs have utilized multiple techniques in order to combat the impact of peer pressure. One major technique is, naturally, peer influence resistance skills. The known correlational relationship between substance use and relationships with others that use makes resistance skills a natural treatment target. This type of training is meant to help individuals refuse participation with substance use while maintaining their membership in the peer group. Other interventions include normative education approaches (interventions designed to teach students about the true prevalence rates and acceptability of substance use), education interventions that raise awareness of potential dangers of substance use, alcohol awareness training and classroom behavior management. The literature regarding the efficacy of these approaches, however, is mixed. A study in Los Angeles and Orange Counties that established conservative norms and attempted to correct children's beliefs about substance abuse among their peers showed a statistically significant decrease in alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use but other studies that systematically reviewed school-based attempts to prevent alcohol misuse in children found "no easily discernible pattern" in both successful and failed programs. A systematic review of intervention programs in schools conducted by Onrust et al. found that programs in elementary school were successful in slightly reducing a student's likelihood to abuse drugs or alcohol. However, this effect started to wear off with programs that targeted older students. Programs that targeted students in grades 8–9 reduced smoking, but not alcohol and other drug abuse, and programs that targeted older children reported no effect at all.


title: Peer pressure

text: In a non-substance context, however, research has showed that decision-making training can produce concrete gains in risk perception and decision-making ability among autistic children. When administered the training in several short sessions that taught the children how to recognize risk from peers and react accordingly, the children showed through post-training assessments that they were able to identify potential threats and sources of pressure from peers and deflect them far better than normal adolescents in a control group.


title: Peer pressure

text: There is evidence supporting the conclusion that parental attitudes disapproving sex tends to lead toward lower levels of adolescent unplanned pregnancy. These disparities are not due solely to parental disposition but also to communication.


title: Peer pressure

text: A study completed in Cape Town, South Africa, looked at students at four secondary schools in the region. They found a number of unhealthy practices derived from peer pressure: condoms are derided, threats of ridicule for abstinence, and engaging in sexual activity with multiple partners as part of a status symbol (especially for males). The students colloquially call others who choose abstinence as "umqwayito", which means dried fruit/meat. An important solution for these problems is communication with adults, which the study found to be extremely lacking within adolescent social groups.


title: Peer pressure

text: Literature reviews in this field have attempted to analyze the norms present in the interactions and decision making behind these behaviors. A review conducted by Bongardt et al. defined three types of peer norms that led to a person's participation in sexual intercourse: descriptive norms, injunctive norms, and outright peer pressure. Descriptive norms and injunctive norms are both observed behaviors and are thus more indirect forms of pressure, but differ in one key aspect: descriptive norms describe peers' sexual behaviors, but injunctive norms describe peers' attitudes toward those behaviors (e.g. approval or disapproval). The last norm defined by the study is called "peer pressure" by the authors, and is used to describe direct encouragement or pressure by a person's peers to engage in sexual behavior.


title: Peer pressure

text: The review found that indirect norms (descriptive and injunctive) had a stronger effect on a person's decision to engage in sexual behavior than direct peer pressure. Between the two indirect norms, descriptive norms had a stronger effect: people were likely to try what they thought their peers were engaging in rather than what they thought had approval in their peer group.


title: Peer pressure

text: Additionally, studies have found a link between self-regulation and likeliness to engage in sexual behavior. The more trouble a subject had with self-regulation and self-control growing up, the more they were likely to fall prey to peer pressure that would lead them to engage in risky sexual acts. Based on these findings, it may be a good idea to prevent these through either a decision-making program or by targeting adolescents' ability to self-regulate against possible risks.


title: Peer pressure

text: From a purely neurological perspective, the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the striatum play an important role in figuring out the value of specific actions. The mPFC is active when determining "socially tagged" objects, which are objects that peers have expressed an opinion about; the striatum is significant for determining the value of these "socially tagged" objects and rewards in general. An experiment performed by Mason et al. utilizing fMRI scans analyzed individuals who were assigned to indicate if a chosen symbol appeared consecutively. The researchers did not tell the subjects the real purpose of the experiment, which was to collect data regarding mPFC and striatum stimulation. Before the actual experiment began, the subjects were subject to a phase of "social" influence, where they learned which symbols were preferred by other subjects who had completed the experiment (while in actuality these other subjects did not exist). Mason et al. found that determining an object's social value/significance is dependent on combined information from the mPFC and the striatum [along the lines denoted in the beginning of the paragraph]. Without both present and functional, it would be difficult to determine the value of action based upon social circumstances.


title: Peer pressure

text: A similar experiment was conducted by Stallen, Smidts, and Sanfrey. Twenty-four subjects were manipulated using a minimal group paradigm approach. Unbeknownst to them, they were all selected as part of the "in-group", although there was an established "out-group". Following this socialization, the subjects estimated the number of dots seen on the screen while given information about what an in-group or out-group member chose. Participants were more likely to conform to in-group decisions as compared to out-group ones. The experiment confirmed the importance of the striatum in social influence, suggesting that conformity with the in-group is mediated with a fundamental value signal—rewards. In other words, the brain associates social inclusion with positive reward. The posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), which is associated with perspective taking, appeared to be active as well, which correlated with patients' self-reports of in-group trustworthiness.


title: Peer pressure

text: In adolescence, risk-taking appears to increase dramatically. Researchers conducted an experiment with adolescent males who were of driving age and measured their risk-taking depending on whether a passenger (a peer of the same age) was in the car. A driving simulation was created, and certain risky scenarios, such as a decaying yellow light as the car was approaching, were modeled and presented to the subjects. Those who were most likely to take risks in the presence of peers (but took fewer risks when there were no passengers) had greater brain activity in the social-cognitive and social-affective brain systems during solo activity (no passengers.) The social-cognitive aspect refers to the ability to gauge what others are thinking and is primarily controlled by the mPFC, right temporal parietal junction, and the posterior cingulate cortex. The social-affective aspect relates to the reward system for committing actions that are accepted or rejected by other people. One side of the reward system is "social pain", which refers to the emotional pain felt by individual due to group repudiation and is associated with heightened activity in the anterior insula and the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex.


title: Peer pressure

text: A explanation of how the peer pressure process works, called “the identity shift effect,” is introduced by social psychologist, Wendy Treynor, who weaves together Festinger's two seminal social-psychological theories (on dissonance, which addresses internal conflict, and social comparison, which addresses external conflict) into a unified whole. According to Treynor's original “identity shift effect” hypothesis, the peer pressure process works in the following way: One's state of harmony is disrupted when faced with the threat of external conflict (social rejection) for failing to conform to a group standard. Thus, one conforms to the group standard, but as soon as one does, eliminating this external conflict, internal conflict is introduced (because one has violated one's own standards). To rid oneself of this internal conflict (self-rejection), an “identity shift” is undertaken, where one adopts the group's standards as one's own, thereby eliminating internal conflict (in addition to the formerly eliminated external conflict), returning one to a state of harmony. Although the peer pressure process begins and ends with one in a (conflict-less) state of harmony, as a result of conflict and the conflict resolution process, one leaves with a new identity—a new set of internalized standards.


title: Peer pressure

text: Social media provides a massive new digital arena for peer pressure and influence. Research suggests there are a variety of benefits from social media use, such as increased socialization, exposure to ideas, and greater self-confidence. There is also evidence of negative influences such as advertising pressure, exposure to inappropriate behavior and/or dialogue, and fake news. These versions of digital peer pressure exist between youth, adults and businesses. In some cases, people can feel pressure to make themselves available 24/7 or to be perfect. Within this digital conversation there can be pressure to conform, especially as people are impacted by the frequency of times others hit the like button. The way others portray themselves on social media might lead to young people trying to mimic those qualities or actions in an attempt at conformity. It may also lead to a fear of missing out, which can pressure youth into irresponsible actions or decisions. Actions and influence on social media may lead to changes in identity, confidence, or habits in real life for children, adolescents, and adults. Another area in which social media and social network groups influence people is in the purchasing of products. When a person is a part of an online social networking group, they are more likely to purchase a product if it was recommended by another member of that group than if it were recommended by a random person online. The effects of social networking groups on purchasing products even translates to subscriptions. If a subscription-based product was given to a member of an online social networking group as a gift by another member of the same group, the person receiving the gift is more likely to adopt the cost of the subscription and keep paying for the service.


title: Peer pressure

text: Over 3 billion social media users across the world are using a variety of platforms, in turn, the type, frequency, and scope of the resulting peer pressure fluctuates. Some research suggests social media has a greater influence on purchasing decisions for consumers in China than in other countries in the world. In addition, Chinese consumers say that they are more likely to consider buying a product if they see it discussed positively by friends on a social media site. Some countries have a very low usage rate of social media platforms, or have cultures that do not value it as highly. As a result, the power and impact of digital peer pressure may vary throughout the world. Overall, there is limited research on this topic and its global scope.


title: Peer pressure

text: The Holocaust is probably the most well-known of genocides. In the 1940s, Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, began a systematic purge against the Jewish people living in Europe, killing around six million Jews by the end of World War II. It is clear that some Germans are culpable for the Holocaust; SS officers and soldiers clearly bought into the Jewish genocide and participated as executioners, jailers, and hunters (for hiding Jews). However, a broader statement is harder to make—as seen below, not all Germans wanted to kill the Jews. When bringing the concept of peer pressure into the Holocaust, German culpability is even harder to decide.


title: Peer pressure

text: The primary issue revolves around collective responsibility and beliefs. As such, there are two positions, most notably held by Christopher Browning and David Goldhagen.


title: Peer pressure

text: Christopher Browning, most known for his book "Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101", relies on an analysis of the men in Reserve Police Battalion 101. The men of the 101st were not ardent Nazis but ordinary middle-aged men of working-class background from Hamburg. They were drafted but found ineligible for regular military duty. Their test as an Order Police battalion first came in the form of Jozefow, a Jewish ghetto in Poland. The Battalion was ordered to round up the men in the ghetto and kill all women, children, and elderly on sight. During the executions, a few dozen men were granted release of their execution tasks and were reassigned to guard or truck duty. Others tried to stall as long as possible, trying not to be assigned to a firing squad. After the executions were completed, the men drank heavily, shaken by their ordeal.


title: Peer pressure

text: At the end of his book, Browning supplies his theory on 101's actions: a combination of authoritative and peer pressure was a powerful coercive tool. First, the Nazi leadership wanted to keep the country's soldiers psychologically healthy, so soldiers were not forced to commit these murders. Throughout the German ranks, nothing negative happened to the soldiers and policemen who refused to join in on a firing squad or Jewish search party. They would simply be assigned other or additional duties, and perhaps subject to a little verbal abuse deriding their "cowardice". For the officers, no official sanction was given, but it was well known that being unable to carry out executions was the sign of a "weak" leader, and the officer would be passed for promotions. Second, Major Trapp, the head of Battalion 101, consistently offered protection from committing these actions, even so far as supporting one man who was blatantly and vocally against these practices. He established "ground" rules in which only volunteers were taking on 'Jewish Hunts" and raids.


title: Peer pressure

text: Browning relies on Milgram's experiments on authority to expand his point. Admitting that Trapp was not a particularly strong authority figure, Browning instead points to the Nazi leadership and the orders of the "highest order" that were handed down. Furthermore, according to Browning's analysis, one reason so few men separated themselves from their task was peer pressure—individual policemen did not want to "lose face" in front of their comrades. Some argued that it was better to shoot one and quit than to be a coward immediately. Some superior officers treated those who did not want to execute Jews with disdain; on the other hand, those selected for the executions or Jewish hunts were regarded as real "men" and were verbally praised accordingly. For some, refusing their tasks meant that their compatriots would need to carry the burden and the guilt of abandoning their comrades (as well as fear of ostracization) compelled them to kill.


title: Peer pressure

text: Daniel Goldhagen, disagreeing with Browning's conclusion, decided to write his own book, "Hitler's Willing Executioners". Its release was highly controversial. He argues that the Germans were always anti-Semitic, engaging in a form of "eliminationism". Taking photos of the deceased, going on "Jew-Hunts", death marches near the end of the war, and a general focus on hate (rather than ignorance) are points Goldhagen utilizes in his book.


title: Peer pressure

text: He does not believe that peer pressure or authoritative pressure can explain why ordinary Germans engaged in these actions. He believes that in order for the policemen in Battalion 101 (and those in similar situations) to kill, they must all be fully committed to the action—no half-heartedness. As he notes,"For that matter, for someone to be pressured into doing something, by peer pressure, everyone else has to want to do it. Peer pressure can, of course, operate on isolated individuals, or small groups, but it depends upon the majority wanting to do it. So the peer pressure argument contradicts itself. If the majority of the people hadn't wanted to kill Jews, then there would have been peer pressure not to do it" (37).Instead, he places a significant emphasis on the German people's anti-Semitism, to the extent of drawing ire from other historians. Browning notes Goldhagen's "uniform portrayal" of Germans, dehumanizing all of the perpetrators without looking at the whole picture. For example, in the town of Niezdow, the Police Battalion executed over a dozen elderly Poles in retaliation for the murder of a German policeman. It is less clear, then, if the Germans in the Police Battalion are antagonistic only towards Jews. The German-Canadian historian Ruth Bettina Birn has—in collaboration with Volker Rieß— checked Goldhagen's archival sources from Ludwigsburg. Their findings confirm the arbitrary nature of his selection and evaluation of existing records as opposed to a more holistic combination of primary sources. Furthermore, Konrad Kwiet, a Holocaust historian, argues that Goldhagen's narrow focus on German anti-Semitism has blinded him to other considerations. He points to the massacres of non-Jews as an example:"[Goldhagen does not shine light] on the motives of “Hitler’s willing executioners” in murdering disabled people within the so-called “Euthanasia Program”, in liquidating 2.7 million Soviet prisoners of war, in exterminating Romas or in killing hundreds of thousands of other people classified as enemies of the “German People and Nation”. The emphasis on German responsibility allows Goldhagen to push aside the willingness of genocidal killers of other nationalities [such as Latvians] who, recruited from the vast army of indigenous collaborators, were often commissioned with the task of carrying out the ‘dirty work’, such as the murder of women and children, and who, in many cases, surpassed their German masters in their cruelty and spontaneous brutality".


title: Peer pressure

text: The Rwandan genocide occurred in 1994, with ethnic violence between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnicities. The primary belligerents were the Hutu; however, as with most ethnic conflicts, not all Hutu wanted to kill Tutsi. A survivor named Mectilde described the Hutu breakdown as follows: 10% helped, 30% forced, 20% reluctant, and 40% willing. For the willing, a rewards structure was put in place. For the unwilling, a punishment system was in effect. The combination, Professor Bhavnani argues, is a behavioral norm enforced by in-group policing. Instead of the typical peer pressure associated with western high school students, the peer pressure within the Rwandan genocide, where Tutsi and Hutu have inter-married, worked under coercion. Property destruction, rape, incarceration, and death faced the Hutu who were unwilling to commit to the genocide or protected the Tutsi from violence.


title: Peer pressure

text: When looking at a sample community of 3426 in the village of Tare during the genocide, McDoom found that neighborhoods and familial structures as important micro-spaces that helped determine if an individual would participate in violence. Proximity increases the likelihood of social interaction and influence. For example, starting at a set point such as the home of a "mobilizing" agent for the Hutu (any individual who planned or led an attack in the village), the proportion of convicts living in a 100m radius of a resident is almost twice as many for convicts (individuals convicted of genocide by the "gacaca", a local institution of transitional justice that allows villagers to adjudicate on many of the perpetrators’ crimes by themselves) as for non-convicts. As the radius increases, so does the proportion decrease. This data hints that "social influence" was at play. Looking at neighborhoods, an individual is 4% more likely to join the genocide for every single percentage point increase in the proportion of convicted perpetrators living within a 100m radius of them. Looking at familial structures, for any individual, each percentage point increase in the proportion of genocide participants in the individual's household increased his chances of joining the violence by 21 to 25%.


title: Peer pressure

text: Of course, the complete situation is a little more nuanced. The extreme control of citizens' daily lives by the government in social affairs facilitated the rapidity of the genocide's spread and broke down the resolve of some who initially wanted to have no part in the genocide. First, prior to the genocide, Rwandans' sense of discipline was introduced and reinforced through weekly "umuganda" (collective work) sessions, involving praise for the regime and its leaders and a host of collective activities for the community. Respect for authority and the fear of stepping out of line were strong cultural values of pre-genocide Rwanda and so were included in these activities. Second, their value of social conformity only increased in the decades leading up to the genocide in both social and political manners. Peasants were told exactly when and what to farm and could be fined given any lack of compliance. These factors helped to drive the killing's fast pace.


title: Peer pressure

text: Most importantly, there were already ethnic tensions among the groups for a variety of reasons: conflicts over land allocation (farming versus pasture) and declining prices of Rwanda's main export: coffee. These problems combined with a history of previously existing conflict. With the introduction of the Second Republic under Habyarimana, former Tutsis in power were immediately purged, and racism served as an explanation as keeping the majority Hutu in legitimate government power. As a result, when the war came, the Hutu were already introduced to the concept of racism against their very own peers.


title: Peer pressure

text: The division in Rwanda was reinforced for hundreds of years. King Kigeli IV, a Tutsi, centralized Rwandan power in the 1800s, just in time for Belgian colonization. The Belgian furthered the message of distinct races, allowing Tutsi men to remain the leaders in the society.


title: Peer pressure

text: Principals who served as strong "instructional" leaders and introduced new curricula and academic programs were able to create a system of peer pressure at the teaching level, where the teachers placed accountability pressure on themselves.


title: Peer pressure

text: Peer pressure can be especially effective (more so than door-to-door visits and telephone calls) in getting people to vote. Gerber, Green, and Larimer conducted a large-scale field experiment involving over 180,000 Michigan households in 2006 and four treatments: one was a reminder to vote, one was a reminder to vote and a note informing them that they were being studied, one that listed the voting records for all potential household individuals, and finally one that listed the voting records for the household individuals and their neighbors. The final treatment emphasized peer pressure within a neighborhood; neighbors could view each other's voting habits with the lists, and so the social norm of "voting is best for the community" is combined with the fear that individuals' peers would judge their lack of voting. Compared to a baseline rate of 29.7% (only the voting reminder), the treatment that utilized peer pressure increased the percentage of household voters by 8.1 percentage points (to 37.8%), which exceeds the value of in-person canvassing and personalized phone calls.