Group Conformity Paper

Cialdini and Trost (1998) mentions that there are many way in which social influences can be used to persuade others. In better understanding compliance with a request, six tendencies of human behavior play a major role in explain why other comply: reciprocity, returning a favor or service; consistency, keeping up with prior engagements or commitments; social validation, group acceptance, or normative influences; liking, what is desired or accepted; authority, conforming to rules established by individuals higher in a hierarchy; and scarcity, opportunities which are scarce or difficult to obtain. Social psychology views these six principles as the motivating factors that influence compliance (Cialdini, 2004).

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.

Conformity is a form of social influence, when we conform we act and think like members of our group. Often people even alter or change their personal beliefs to match those around them. When we conform we feel pressured to fit in with others, to be a part of the majority. While we may still have contradicting beliefs towards things, we change our behaviors and actions to match what everybody else is

An individual’s need to conform stems from our mental psychology, which is something we cannot usually change because it is in our nature. Guandong Song et al described conformity as “…a subject’s behavior or attitudes following those of the object. The subject is the individual who conforms. The object can be external or internal factors that cause conforming actions, in the form of individuals, groups, organizations,

To understand why we have a sense of conformity, we must first understand value. “Values are used to learn people’s culture, ideas, and what they want out of life (Henslin 49). Every culture has similar and different values. “Norms are the expectations a group develops concerning the ‘right’ way to reflects its values” (Henslin49). An example of a norm would be personal space and speaking quietly in certain places such as a library. When norms are violated people often begin to question the person’s sanity and well-being based on how extreme the norm violation was.

The acts of conforming and obeying shape us significantly, whether we are conscious of it or not. They do so in ways that psychologists Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram attempt to explain through their research. Asch touches base on the topic of conformity and discusses the ways in which group behaviors and social norms can influence the decisions an individual makes. On the other hand, Milgram’s focus is on obedience, and he studied it by measuring average, everyday people and their willingness to obey authority figures, even if it involves actions that go against their personal beliefs and morals. They have provided evidence through experiments, and with this information, it becomes easier to understand the world of politics, and how these

Conformity is a type of social influence which involves a change in behaviour and belief of a minority to fit in with the group concerning real or imagined group pressures. This behaviour could be defined as the pressure to behave in ways that are viewed as acceptable by a particular group, brought about either by a desire to ‘fit in’ or be liked. The main factor that influences conformity are social norms. Social Norms are a pattern of expected behaviour in certain situations either implicitly or explicitly. Conformity exists in two categories, normative influence where the individual’s desire is to gain social approval and acceptance from the group to make a favourable impression. And informational social influence where a person is looking for guidance in an ambiguous situation as the individual listens to other member 's views and opinions to be guided to an answer. Conformity is distinguished in three different types; Compliance is the most superficial type of conformity. It refers to a person who conforms publicly with the views and attitudes expressed by the group but still continue to privately disagree. This temporary short term behavioural change which often results normative social influence. For example, It is a student 's first day of college, but has arrived late and missed the induction to which he doesn 't know where to go. He then sees a group of students filing off towards a corridor and

Conformity refers to the likelihood that an individual will follow the unspoken rules or behaviors of the social group to which they belong. In the short video clip titled “Asch Conformity Experiment”, we learned that people can feel pressured into abnormal behavior because of the unanimity of the majority.

According to Aronson (1985), conformity is “a change in a person’s opinion or behaviour as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or a group of people”.

“In our society there are strong pressures to conform in the interest of efficiency. In fact those who conform usually move up the hierarchy to positions of increased authority. The reward system favours obedience to authority and it takes a strong person to resist.(The Social Animal pg.118)”

Why do we conform? Two basic sources of influence: normative social influence, the need to be liked, accepted by others and Informational influence: need to be correct and to behave in accordance with reality.

People don't always conform for the same reason's, in 1958 Kelman identified three main forms of conformity, each of which could produce conforming behaviour but in different ways. The first of these and the most superficial is Compliance: Going along with the majority in order to avoid rejection or in order to gain rewards such as social acceptance or approval. The distinguishing feature of compliance

In the selection “Groups and Conformity" by Michael R. Solomon, he talks about how people in groups are more influential than an individual person would be. When a person basically changes their attitude or behavior just to fit into a group is a reference group. There are three forms of reference group’s influence. The first one is informational influence. With this influence, people seek out information on different products before they buy the product. The second one is utilitarian influence. In this influence, before people make a decision on a product, they go to family or friends and see what they think of the product first. The third one is value-expressive influence. In this influence, people feel like they will be more successful when

Conformity is the social process by which people in a group or in a social circle engage in behaviour which appears to be socially acceptable, that is they go along with the social expectations apparent at the time. One of the key factors in conformity, however, is yielding to group pressure, as defined by Mann (1969):

First and foremost, people conform because of yielding to be consistent and managing self-image. Conformity can be interpreted by social influences, which are informational and normative influence. Informational influence is the need to know what is right (Myers, 2008).When a situation is ambiguous, people believe and rely on others in order to direct themselves into a right position. Sherif's (1936) autokinetic experiment illustrated