All rights go to European Azerbaijan School This presentation was submitted to IB and please use it only as a reference TOK Presentation Script Done by: David Dementyev Slide 1: Title of the presentation Negative External pressure on Our Behaviour My presentation is about negative external pressure on a person behavior and how it affects them. Slide 2: Let me first start by introducing my real-life situation. My real-life situation is about a kid named James Rodemeyer. James was a teenage boy who was openly gay. James didn't want other different sexually-oriented people to be let down by negative influence. So he started activism and YouTube videos to help victims of homophobic bullying. But in the end, James was bullied so much in real life and on the internet that he decided to take his own life. Bullies' “pleasure” took the life of the 14-year-old James. Slide 3: After analyzing my real-life situation I have came up with two questions that were raised from this RLS. These questions are: Q : To what extent does a negative social environment influence an individual's behavior? Q: To what extent do past negative experiences affect a person in their present life? Slide 4: Here is my knowledge question which is the best suiting one to this RLS. To what extent does a negative external pressure has an effect on a person’s behavior? Slide 5: What's my reason for picking this specific knowledge question? Because by picking “negative external pressure” I can analyze this from many different perspectives, I can analyze my main point the “negative” pressure but at the same time, I can relate to another type of pressures. Also, why did I choose this RLS? Because I believe this is a severe problem worldwide, as many teenagers end up taking their own lives due to the negative social environment/ negative social pressure. I also have friends who have gone through this. Slides 6: These are the Ways of Knowing that I have decided to go with; Emotion: Language: Faith: Slide 7: Language In this slide, I will be talking about my claims and counterclaims on Language, which is supported by various examples and perspectives. My first claim is: The language used by strong force is sometimes so compelling that it tends to fall for the yielding force. As an example, I will be using Servern Suzuki's famous speech. Which she talks about “Severn Cullis- Suzuki presents an environmental protest to the UN in 1992 at the earth Summit n Rio Centro. She emphasizes the importance of nature including its animals and how we, the human race, are destroying our planet. Suzuki explains the importance of being aware of our impact on the Earth” This speech has left UN speechless and in shock, as it was so compelling and strong, that it has made yielding force fall for it. As my counterclaim, I will be using: People who are conscious of the strong force intention sometimes tend to

1. NEGATIVE EXTERNAL
PRESSURE ON OUR
BEHAVIOUR
BY: DAVID DEMENTYEV

2. Real Life Situation
My real life situation is about a kid named James
Rodemeyer. James was a teenage boy who was openly
gay. James didn't want other different sexually
oriented people to be let down by negative influence.
So he started activism and YouTube videos to help
victims of homophobic bullying. But in the end James
was bullied so much in real life and on internet that
he decided to take his own life. Bullies “pleasure” took
the live of the 14 year old James.

3. Questions
raised from
this Real Life
Situation
Q :To what extent does negative social environment
influence an individual's behaviour?
Q : To what extent do past negative experiences affect
a person in their present life?

4. Knowledge question
To what extent does a negative
external pressure has an effect on
person’s behaviour?

5. What's your reason for choosing
this knowledge question?
Because I believe this is a severe problem worldwide, as many
teenagers end up taking their own lives due to this negative external
pressure. I also have friends who have gone through this and wanted
to analyze this from different perspectives.

6. My Ways of
Knowing (WOK)
Emotion:
Language:
Faith:

7. Language
Claim: The language that is used by a strong force is sometimes so compelling that it tends to fall
for the yielding force.
As example: Speech of Severn Suzuki
Counterclaim: People who are conscious of the strong force intention sometimes tend to ignore the
language
Example : Politicians and a kid ignoring bullying.

8. Faith
CLAIM: Faith can be an external force that causes changes in person's behavior.
For Example: Religious self harming eg: Flagellation , in this case its negative external force.
And restricting certain behaviours (sins).
COUNTERCLAIM: Despite that, faith can also be a powerful tool to resist external
powerful force
For Example: Faith can prevent an vegetarian from eating non vegetarian food despite their friend
pressuring them to do so.
Source

9. Emotion
Claim: The strong external force is utilizes emotion as a weapon to impact the behavior of others
For Example: In advertising emotions are mainly used to influence a person's behaviour/thought.
• Stop Smoking Commercials are using emotions to prevent people from smoking.
COUNTERCLAIM: The impact of this emotion on us relies on the context
• For Example: Son telling my mom to stop smoking vs a random man saying to stop smoking

10. Knowledge question and how it impacts OAKs
Human Sciences
Arts
Ethics

11. Human Sciences
CLAIM:The external pressure sometimes has a strong impact, which the person does not think is
accountable for their action.
For Example: Milgram Experiment .
COUNTERCLAIM: The strength of the external force sometimes backfires when the individual it
impacts does not conform to the condition and does what is contrary to what is being told
For Example: People who did not want to continue the Milgram experiment.

12. Ethics
CLAIM: By enforcing its own ethical code over the others, powerful external pressure can affect
behaviour.
For Example: I am from a Azerbaijan and so everybody expects me to be Muslim but I’m Christian.
Their pressure can affect my thoughts of being are christian.
COUNTERCLAIM: Individuals have always opposed the imposition of such codes of ethics
For Example: Martin Luther King

13. Art
CLAIM: Negative external pressure can affect artists to such an extent that it has altered their entire
artwork, in a negative/dark way.
As Example: Sarah Wake’s Early Painting vs a Painting after the negative influence.

14. Art
COUNTERCLAIM: There are paintings that have been produced regardless of the negative social
influence.
For Example: M.F HUSSAIN, SARA WATHI
Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci , Mona Lisa by Soler Santos Saraswati by Lauren Goldberg Saraswati by MF Hussain

15. Conclusion
So the above Areas of Knowledges and Ways of Knowing I have come to this conclusion that negative
external environment DOES in fact influence a person's behaviour. Some people take it as a positive
way and try to overcome the bullying and become stronger which structures their future and some
people take it negatively which destroys their life. Unfortunately though, many suicide victims to
bullying couldn't overcome the bullying and fell into a deep depression. James was one of them, rest
in peace Angel.

16. Link back to RLS
After studying all the WOKs and AOKs, I conclude that if they had a better knowledge of the
scenario, such as not revealing that he’s gay or not being an activist. If James did that he would not
have ended up being bullied as heavily as he did when bullies knew that he was gay.
EMOTION: If the bullies had been emotional towards their actions to James and behaved correctly
towards his decision.
LANGUAGE: If bullies were more polite to James with their language and used a more soft language
rather than slangs.
ETHICS: The scenario would have been different if the bullies had kept "ethics" inside their mind, and
in their decisions.

17. Other RLS
My real life situation was fully focused on changing personal behavior through negative external
pressure but it is possible to apply the same situation to different real life situation.
For example; Changes in societies under the impact of stronger/bigger societies, such as a certain
uncontacted tribe merging with other tribe which in the end results in the languages merging as
well, or even dying out.

18. Bibliography
October 24-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6GxIuljT3w - Milgram Experiment
October-24https://acluva.org/en/news/prevent-bullying-and-protect-free-speech - Preventing Bullying
October-24https://www.mckendree.edu/academics/scholars/issue1/taylor.htm - Faith
October 24-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellant -Faith
October -24https://www.stopbullying.gov/what-is-bullying/index.html- About Bullying
October -24https://publicautonomy.org/2015/11/27/neoliberal-guilt/ - Faith
October 24 - https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Saraswati-Hindu-Goddess/333302/185347/view Art
October-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr. Ethics
October 27 -https://laughingsquid.com/filipino-artist-commissions-83-interpretations-of-the-iconic-painting-mona-lisa-as-a-gift-for-his-wife-
mona/ -Art
October 27- https://gulgasht.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/art-controversial-paintings-of-m-f-hussain/ - Art