Conformity And Normative Social Psychology

The article “Social Influence on Risk Perception during Adolescence” by Lisa j. Knoll, Lucia Magis-Weinberg, Maarten Speekenbrink, and Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, explores the relationship between social influence and risk taking. The authors acknowledge that adolescence is a time in life where risk taking is more likely to occur with peers than alone. However it is not just adolescence that are victims of peer pressure. People of all ages are constantly making decisions about whether they should take such risks. But what makes people take the risk? The article say that “adolescences are unaware of potential risks and feel invulnerable”. However that does not explain why they are more likely to engage

Many individuals is faced with the decision of conforming or choosing personal desire, and it is not an easy decision. It is hard because being shunned by others for being different is not a good feeling. Choosing to conform over personal desire, often leads to loss. On the other hand, personal desire is what sets others apart and gives them joy. In the poem, “The Jackhammer Syndrome”, Al Purdy discusses the good and bad memories he has experienced. He goes through his memories of when he had fun and made mistakes, but he reflects on what he could have done better. The author of “The Jackhammer Syndrome informs against choosing the welcoming joy of conformity over the long-term gains of personal desire. Making the decision to pursue conformity over personal desire may seem easy at first, but if the choice is to conform, the joy it gives will not last. Making the decision to pursue conformity over personal desire Conformity may seem to give joy at first, but it does not last. When Al is playing pool with his brother, he wants to win badly, but losses. However when he did not care to win, Al wins! Conforming can lead to loss but personal desire has much to gain. If the choice is to conform, personal identity may be lost. In my life, I recognize several instances in which I found several similarities between Al and myself. I have made decisions that were not always good ones such as swimming across long distances with friends.

Conformity is a concept that has been heavily researched in the field of social psychology. Conformity is defined as a change in behavior, beliefs, and attitudes due to group pressure perceived as real (encompassing the presence of others) or imagined (encompassing the pressure of social standards) (Myers, 2010, p. 192). The concept of conformity is a powerful influence on the tendency for people to arrange their thoughts, perspectives, and ideas with others, especially when in a group. This takes away from a person’s individuality because they want to feel accepted by others and therefore, a person will accomplish this basic need of approval through conforming.

Within social psychology there are areas of behaviour which psychologists have been particularly interested in. These areas include conformity, obedience and social facilitation to name a few. Two key studies within the areas of obedience and conformity were carried out by Milgram and Asch (Billingham, Ladbrook, Standring & Teahan, 2008).

There is a fundamental human need to belong to social groups especially if people were to live and work together, it is likely that they need to agree on common beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviours in order to get along and fit-in. Thus, we learnt to conform to rules of other people, the more people see others behaving in a particular way or making particular decisions, the more likely people will feel obliged to follow the suit. This is called conformity and can be defined in different ways, Aronson, Wilson & Akert (2014) stated it is the changing of one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people. According to Deutsch and Gerard (1955), social influence should be distinguished into two types, the informational social influence and normative social influence. The occurrence of social influence has implied to many real life events, which has drawn many researchers to attention. This has lead many researchers to design distinct experiments to try and understand the cause of the conformity, whether conformity is situation dependent, and whether we are able to resist social influences.

Social influence refers to how our actions, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings become influenced by the people around us, whether we realize it or not. According to the textbook, there are three different types of social influence: conformity, obedience, and compliance. Each one influences our behavior in different ways. Conformity refers to a new behavior that is influenced by a specific individual or group directly or indirectly. Conformity takes place in three different ways, either out of fear of social rejection, people might choose to comfort to gain social acceptance and avoid seclusion.

An instance in which I conformed to social norms or to peer pressure and did something that I later regretted is, whenever I was a Sophomore in High School I hung around the wrong crowd. This group of people was always influencing me to do bad things. One time we were driving around, one of the girls I was with decided it would be a good idea to cruise around the neighborhood and egg a bunch of cars. I kept saying “no, I’m not going to throw any eggs.” This girl said, “come on don’t be a goody goody, just do it.” So I did. I threw three eggs, all at different cars. I did this because I felt like I had to in order to conform to the group. This is also an example of normative influence because, I conformed to fulfill other people’s expectations,

Learning is often thought of as the main purpose of school, however school’s impact on children’s behaviour is remarkably significant to their development. Afterall, school provides students with the necessary skills to be successful adults and citizens. One of these skills, is learning how to respect others. In contrast, Kevin does not conform to this social norm. For instance, his english teacher states; “I’ve noticed that he asks challenging questions merely to catch me out - to humiliate me in front of the class. In fact, he knows the answer before hand”(Shriver, 2003, p. 334). Unlike most students when asking a question, Kevin is not unclear of the meaning or curious about the topic. His single goal is to undermine authority and to mock

The idea of conformity vs. non-conformity emerges in the American issue for generations as the opposing views on this concept exemplify diverse consequences in choosing which path to follow. In the genre of one’s journey west toward self-discovery, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, written in April 1951 illustrates the journey of him and his friend’s across America in the post war beat generation, as they counteracted the societal norms of that time in order to discover his own true individuality. Similarly, individuality emerges strongly in the essay Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson written in 1841 to portray the necessity of relying on oneself for knowledge and guidance in order to re- discover a true identity. Contrasting, the concept of opposing the majority reveals dangers exemplified in The Ministers Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne written in the 18th century to a Puritan society. Emerson and Kerouac embrace the idea of individuality and self-reliance while Hawthorne explores the dangers of non-conformity in order to exemplify both views on this American issue.

Since the beginning of time stereotypes have been existing and will probably still continue to be existing for as lengthy as people continue to carry on the assumptions toward people based on social class, gender, race or even religious views. Each and every one has been at gunpoint since infancy to adapt to the stereotypes within their own society. As the case may be this is not a negative acknowledgment, seeing as majority of people convert to stereotypes and social norms without even a fighting word. The majority of children will believe their parents or guardians when told certain actions are unacceptable or not for their gender, and will continue to follow these set rules to be a “good kid” and gain the approval of their guardians, which lead to the longing for them to gain the approval of society. The complication with conformity, as it is with most subjects, when people take it too far. Conformity becomes a destructive aspect of one’s life when the norm of society is telling people to restructure their entire character from mental aspects to even the physical.

Social psychology is the scientific study of how social groups affect an individual’s behavior, way of thinking, and feelings. There are millions of people in the world we live in and those people impact us at every stage of our lives. Babies look to the adults which influences their actions and even personality. Adults have to interact with others on a daily basis. Conforming is an example of how this works. When someone or a group of people do one thing, there is an urge in the individual to do the same thing. Now, whether that same thing is as simple as looking up at a cloud or joining the rioters who are smashing windows and beating people, can have varying degrees of conformity. Women seem to be more apt to conform than that of their male

Interestingly, there are norms that define appropriate behavior for every social group; even though, such social norms are not a law. For instance, neighbors, students, co-workers, parents etc. are all aware of the norms governing behavior. However, as the individual progress from one group to another, their behavior changes accordingly. Therefore, as a human being is essential to meditate in those social norms to guide and direct one behavior, to provide order and cultivate predictability; and understanding of others actions. Moreover, such reasons would benefit one relationships with people, thus, conform to social norms.

Normative social influences guide people to understand what is and what is not acceptable behaviour in certain social contexts, and for the most part, people seem to conform (Droogendyk, 2016). The normative social influence or “social norm” that was violated and that this paper focuses on is sitting in the back seat of a car when there is only two people in the vehicle. This is classed as a descriptive social norm, and is so because it does not have any sort of moral component. It is a common understanding of how a person should act in a given situation (Aronson, Wilson, Fehr, & Akert, 2013). These descriptive norms usually have a powerful impact on how a person behaves and motivates them to act a certain way (Droogendyk, 2016). In this case,

In pyschology conformity can be descibed as an indiviual’s tendency to follow the unspoken rules or behaviours of the social group to which he/she belongs to or wants to be apart of. Many psychologists including , Jenness (1932), Sherif (1935) both experimented in psychology, investigating conformity and group pressure. However, perhaps the most famous conformity experiment was done by Solomon Asch (1951) and his line judgment experiment. (McLeod 2007)

In 1935, Sherif conducted a study similar to jenness’ known as the Autokinetic Effect. This is a perceptual illusion in which a stationary point of light seen in darkness appears to move. His aim was to demonstrate that people conform to group norms when they are put in an ambiguous situation. First, the participants were shown the light individually and were asked to estimate how far and in which direction it moved. For each participant an average was calculated. The participants were then grouped together in threes and each member of the group continued to be asked to give their estimates out loud and were not told to reach a group decision. The participants were then tested on own. The results were each individuals estimate varied widely but over 100 trials they settles down to a narrow range with a consistent central value. After a few exposures the judgements of the group tended to converge. When participants again gave their