Quotes from Alexandra Robbins

Polarization (is) a tendency for groups to form judgments that are more extreme than individuals' personal opinions.

Group membership can modify individuals' perceptions of themselves. Unable to separate their personal introspection from the ways they believe other people perceive them, teenagers may have what psychologists call an "imaginary audience", meaning that they believed that other people are just as attuned to their appearance and behavior as they are.

Students usually don't refer to themselves as nerds until someone else accuses them of being one.

In the midst of a crowd, an individual's layers of restraint peel away, revealing potentially barbaric instincts and a susceptibility to a "crowd contagion.

Teenage drinking has been declining since 1999, but students vastly overestimate their classmates' use of alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes. For example, a study conducted at a Midwestern high school when teenage alcohol use was peaking found that students believed that 92% of their peers Frank alcohol and 85% smoked cigarettes. When researchers surveyed the school to unearth the actual statistics, they learned that 47% of students had consumed alcohol and 17% smoked.

What is to give light must endure burning.' I think people who care for others understand. Caregiving is painful.

Popular kids don't necessarily know who they are because they're so busy trying to conform. It's the outcasts who are more attuned to who they are. They're more self-aware, more real.

I was what's known as a floater. I could sit at the edge of most cafeteria tables, but was never a part of any one group. I was also a dork. And still am. And proud!

I would hate to be in high school now. Psychologists talk about the 'imaginary audience' that teens seem to feel they have around them and that makes them think they have to keep up their image all the time. Now with Facebook and MySpace and 24/7 online access, that imaginary audience has become real.

We live in the Age of Comparison. Too often, we deem our own achievements worthless if they fall short of others' standards. Our best isn't good enough if it's not as good as someone else's best.

Medicine asked something extraordinary of nurses: to forge intimate connections with another person for hours, weeks, or months, to care thoroughly and holistically—and then to let that individual suddenly go, often never to be heard from again.

As a Minnesota agency nurse said, "We are not just bed-making, drink-serving, poop-wiping, medication-passing assistants. We are much more.

Imagine what it must be like for teenagers who don't feel they have room to breathe in their own homes. If you are a parent reading this book, you care about your child. If she is quirky, unusual, or nonconformist, ask yourself whether you are doing everything you can to nurture her unusual interests, style, or skills, or whether instead you are directly or subtly pushing her to hide them.

Groups satisfy our brain's natural inclination to make sense of hordes of people we encounter and observe. This quality is so inherent that children intuitively understand the need to form groups without adults having to teach them.

Random, meaningless groups can adopt an us-versus-them mentality.

Instead of revamping school policies to welcome every child, many school systems are bent on revamping the students to conform to their schools.

How could he encapsulate in a pithy admissions-interview line all of his unique ideas and interests?

A St. Louis oncology nurse quoted Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl to States News Service in 2012: " 'What is to give light must endure burning.' I think people who care for others understand. Caregiving is painful.

And when they are out in public, we are secretly looking at people's arms to determine where we would start an IV, an Arizona nurse said. Sometimes if I'm out with a group of nurses, we're like, 'Wow, look at those veins. I could hit those from across the room.

It was a relief to inhabit someone else's life for a while, to get her personal issues for a brief respite. In a play, she knew exactly how all her character's problems would be resolved. No matter how the cast performed, the end turned out the same. No questions, no worries, no unknowns.

Students didn't much like those who verbally or physically beat the crap out of them. But when researchers began measuring aggression alongside perceived popularity, they found an undeniably strong link. Recent studies conclude that aggressive behaviors are now often associated with high social status. Psychologists no longer view aggression as a last-resort tactic of social misfits. Now they see aggression as a means toward social success. (This does not, however, mean it is admired.)

Sometimes Eli believed his mother was embarrassed by him. I swear, my mom thinks if I do one thing differently than the average person, I'm weird, Eli said later. It's like she thinks I'm a freak or something. No matter what I do, it's not 'normal' enough for her.

The cafeteria made him feel like an observer rather than a participant in the high school experience.

I love my job, and I hope people find comfort in knowing there are still people out there who love what they do." —a New York acute care nurse