Can I see a show of hands – who here has friends?
Short story about a friend going to the gym and everyone making negative comments about him behind his back for leading a healthier life – so I was like, what’s up with that?
Kept thinking – we have friends but have a hard time sticking to self-improvement goals – new years’ resolutions become I’ll-do-that-laters and eventually I’ll do that nevers. You’d think you could rely on the support of friends and family to get through these issues, yet I found the demand for self-help services and products is a $11 billion industry in the US alone. (Schulz, N.Y. Mag).
Thesis: People communicate discouragingly towards peers or friends trying to improve themselves due to competition or feeling like they’ll split apart.

2010 – Altermatt - Capitalizing on academic success: Students' interactions with friends as predictors of school adjustment
The author examined how students that shared their academic successes felt
They felt better about school
But they felt that their peer relationships declined over time because of sharing
Doing well -> Competitive feelings -> Negative communication
1987 – Balkin - Contributions of friends to women's fear of success in college.
Students wrote essays about graduation acceptance speeches – high fear in female stories
Females feared disapproval from peers who didn’t go to college, higher more non-college friends
Improvement -> Grow apart from old friends -> Disapproving communication
The Big Counterpoint: These are your friends, right? Shouldn’t they be helping you? My friends have helped with things before

Communication isn’t negative when you either aren’t outdoing your friends or are improving together

2013 – Lerner and Malmendier - With a little help from my (random) friends: Success and failure in post-business school entrepreneurship
Students were kept together through freshman and then following years up until an entrepreneurship course
Compared to years with random students, ventures resulting in failure greatly decreased
Not doing self a disservice by helping peers -> Amicable communication





2014 – Hitchman, Fong, Zanna, Thrasher, Laux - The relation between number of smoking friends, and quit intentions, attempts, and success: Findings from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey.
People with no peers quitting – hard time quitting
People with no peers smoking or peers also quitting – easy time quitting
Quitting together -> Positive support for quitting
Not leaving anyone behind in the case of no peers smoking -> No negative discouragement

Conclusion
Due to competition or feeling like it’ll split them apart, people discourage peers from improvement
If you are not outdoing your peers by improving they’ll stay out of your way and will communicate amicably, or if you are improving together you’ll find support from them towards your shared goals

Works Cited (Not certain if necessary, online rubric for Speech Outline mentions a second handout being attached to the Oral Presentation handout that I do not have)
Kathryn Schulz Published Jan 6, 2013. (n.d.). The Self in Self-Help. Retrieved April 25, 2017, 	from http://nymag.com/health/self-help/2013/schulz-self-searching/
Altermatt, E. R. (2010). Capitalizing on academic success: Students' interactions with friends as 	predictors of school adjustment. The Journal of Early Adolescence.
Balkin, J. (1987). Contributions of friends to women's fear of success in college. Psychological 	Reports, 61(1), 39-42.
Lerner, J., & Malmendier, U. (2013). With a little help from my (random) friends: Success and 	failure in post-business school entrepreneurship. Review of Financial Studies, 26(10), 	2411-2452.
Hitchman, S. C., Fong, G. T., Zanna, M. P., Thrasher, J. F., & Laux, F. L. (2014). The relation 	between number of smoking friends, and quit intentions, attempts, and success: Findings 	from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey. Psychology of 	Addictive Behaviors, 28(4), 1144.