Factors That Has An Effect On Conformity

Have you ever wondered why do we do things that we do? Why do we act in a certain way? What compels us to follow a path or formulate habits? One perspective among many others is the sociocultural perspective. A sociocultural perspective is an approach to understand why humans behave the way they do. It seeks to understand human behavior and personality development by examining the influence of rules of social groups on individuals who are members of those social groups. Sociocultural approach is an emerging topic that looks at the important contributions that society makes to an individual. The sociocultural approach is based on the assumption that our personalities, beliefs, attitudes and skills are learned from others. It refers to a point of view that is built upon the idea that society and culture are major factors that influence personalities. This approach believes that people are heavily influenced by their social environment. What makes and defines us as individuals is the application of sociocultural approach. For example, if you look outside the window and see a man talking to a tree, what conclusions will you draw? You may think the man is a lunatic and needs some kind of medication. But would your opinion change if you knew that the man was Native American and Native Americans believe in a spiritual philosophy that trees can speak if you listen to them. So you see, the context of culture makes a huge difference in how you ascertain someone’s behavior and that’s

It can be seen in our everyday lives how easy it is for people to conform to the social norms of a group or society. Wayne Dyer once said “When you're just like everybody else, you've nothing to offer other than your conformity” and I believe that this statement couldn’t be more accurate. Recently, it has become more acceptable for people to express their individuality and showing one’s true colours is being promoted. It is better to be a unique individual than to conform to society because conformity destroys personal growth and development. We need to express our originality and by conforming to what others want us to be, we squander any chance of achieving self-acceptance. People are more likely to conform is when they are placed in a group setting. An individual will not want to break the group unanimity so they will conform to whatever decision the group comes to, even if it goes against their beliefs or values. I firmly believe that if we pay less attention to what others expect of us and expressing our individuality, we can offer more to society and develop and grow as human beings.

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.

In the conformity phase, people are more appreciative of the dominant culture’s characteristics over their own culture’s values. In the United States, this dominant culture is the White American culture and serves as the reference group for those individuals in the conformity phase. Individuals can be in this phase without having a disdain for their own culture. Because the White culture is the dominant culture, individuals may conform to this culture in order to avoid feeling inferior. Within each of the five phases of the R/CID model, attitudes and beliefs are further broken down. For individuals in the conformity phase, the attitude and belief towards the self are characterized by negative views. Cultural and physical characteristics of the individual’s own culture are unwanted and should be denied or changed. Attitudes towards members of the same group are also highly negative. Individuals in the

There has been extensive research done on the differences between cultures and how they react to conformity. It can be seen that overall there are major differences between Eastern and WEIRD (western, educated, industrial, rich, and democratic) cultures in the values associated with conformity. These values associated with conformity are not isolated in different age groups within a culture. The three papers being discussed in this paper, Kim & Markus (1999), Clegg et al. (2017), and Zhang and Thomas (1994) all discuss these differences between Eastern and Western cultures. Through these papers, it can be seen that there is a clear distinction between cultures and their views on conformity whether it be positive or negative. The trend between these three papers is that western (American) cultures view non-conformity positively while eastern (Asian) cultures do not.

Chapter 12 social psychology cover how we affect one another’s behaviors. Culture, stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination attitude, and interpersonal attraction are all factors that contribute to behavior in a social setting. Understanding how we influence one another on a social level forces us to look at not only ourselves, but also look at how others affect the world we live in and why it is important to be able to identify these influences and the impact they have on our behaviors good or bad

Conformity and Its Meaning This assignment focuses upon conformity and what it means to us. Conformity is defined by Zimbardo (1992) as "A tendency for people to adopt behaviour, values and attitudes of other members of a reference group". Why people conform is a topic of much debate.

Humans make all sorts of implications, different types directed to variant people. However, in this case three sources go in depth and analysis how conformity can create boundaries or barriers between you and society. Today, the influences of social pressure on rejection or acceptance can drastically modify someones perception or behavior. Moreover, we tend to oblige to norm. With limitations and boundaries authoritatively mandating us to differentiate right from wrong or whether to look left or right, it is almost to easy to blend along side of others. It seems like society's standards control our future actions. It is almost impossible to sustain a pristine thought.

This small article was written to inform the reader about conformity and what conformity is. Conformity is the common form of social influence and is usually described as the way that someone thinks or acts similar to members of a certain social group in order to fit in with group norms. Although conformity can be seen as a negative thing, it is very common everywhere and is sometimes essential to have a working community. Conformity can usually be based off of obedience and compliance. Conformity can be subtle, unconscious, or can come from social pressure. Some motivators for conformity are normative influence (what seems normal or common) and informational influence (what we have been told by society or what we know).Both men and women will

People get caught up in monotonous, repetitive lives. Daily routines provide comfort and a sense of safety, but change offers a chance to revitalize a life. The problem arises when comfort and monotony outnumber change and the fear of the unknown. Humans naturally tend to choose the easier path, the one requiring less work, risk and sacrifice. By choosing the easiest choice, people entagle in an endless cycle of comformity. For example, they might choose to work in their hometown instead of risking moving to another city. This shows how people often make decisions based on the familiar rather than the unknown. But change offers hope. It solves invariability by providing unexpected, exciting and diverse opportunities. A person moving from their

In 1932, Jenness became the first psychologist to study conformity, which involved an experiment with basic materials and little ethical treatment (Jenness). The participants were asked to examine a jar of beans. They were then told to make an estimate of how many beans were inside of the jar. The participants were not informed of intentions of the study, thus full consent was invalid. When they were exposed to the estimates of other participants before making an individual guess, most participants’ estimations differed from the norm, and a shift occurred from the first estimates to the cluster of numbers within the pool of peer responses. This result led Jenness to form the idea of informational conformity,

People’s attitudes can be influenced by the culture they are apart of, this is because individual thoughts, actions and feelings are influenced by social groups (Social influence, n.d.). This is also known as social influence which can contribute to the development of our attitudes as it may encourage members to change their beliefs, thoughts and feelings. People can conform with people in culture to have the same attitudes. Conformity can be formed through direct interaction between family, friends and teachers as well

A collectivist’s values and beliefs are consistent with and reflect those of the in-group. Moreover, a collectivist’s association with his or her in-groups may last a lifetime. In many collectivistic cultures, the primary value is harmony with others. Triandis observes that because group harmony is so highly valued, obedience to, and compliance with, in-group pressures is routine. One’s behavior is role based, and deviations from the prescribed role are discouraged and often negatively sanctioned. A person’s behavior is guided more by shame than by personal guilt. A collectivist who stands out from the group disrupts the harmony and may be punished. Most collectivistic cultures value social reciprocity, obligation, dependence, and obedience. But by far, the primary value stressed by many collectivistic cultures is harmony.

Apart from Western’s individualism, East Asian, particularly Chinese people whose traditional culture has been mainly shaped by Confucianism, Buddhism and other for thousands of years (Fan, 2000; Pecotich and Yang, 2001), are more focus on collectivism. Based on the definition of Merriam-Webster, individualism means “the actions or attitudes of a person who does things without being concerned about what other people will think.” Individualists are more self-centered and their ways of consumption are mainly according to their self-expression. However, collectivists tend to present themselves in order to conform to their hierarchical culture and society (Sun, D 'alessandro, & Johnson, 2014) and focus on group thinking and group acting.

Indian and Nigerian societies, both show collective behavior of their people as they both have low individualism scores of 48 and 30 respectively. These societies appreciate large social networks in which each individual is bound to act according to his group members, family or close relations. If a person fails in any respects in the sight of his group of family member he feels ashamed and is left with the feeling of emptiness. Also recruitment and promotions of individuals are strongly associated with having good relationship rather than knowledge or ability.