Relationship Between Norms And Conformity

Some incidences I am aware of when I conform and in other circumstances I must do automatically because I do not notice my conformity. There was one particular incident which involved a group discussion in class, my sophomore year of college. I was taking a political science course to fulfill my general education requirement and my group and I were discussing the Constitution. We have just learned new concepts and we have to apply them to the Constitution and the teacher also gave a case study as an activity to complete during class. I had never taken a political science class before and everyone in my group was majoring in political science. Therefore, I felt as though I did not have sufficient knowledge on the topics like everyone else in the group. There was a lot of personal opinion in these particular answers and while I would think of something in my head, I did not agree with any of the other four people in my group. I thought maybe it is because I am a psychology major and I think about situations differently. I believed that everyone else in the group was more knowledgeable when it came to these topics and better informed. When we jotted down our final responses, I did not agree with any of the responses but because I thought they were more informed, I conformed. I agreed with the responses outwardly, but not inwardly. I did not want to be wrong or rejected from my group members. This

Burger, J. M. (1987). Desire for control and conformity to a perceived norm.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(2), 355-360

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”.

When researching the topic of social norms and norm violations, there is an ongoing list. This is because almost everything we do in society is based on these social norms. If/when these are broken it can be punished as little as someone giving a dirty look, or as large as severe jail time. Social norms come into existence when a society does a specific task over and over until it becomes a normal occurrence. One of the biggest concerns is the war on drugs. Marijuana use is harshly punishments yet causes little to none negative effects. On the other hand, we have tobacco which there are barely any laws on yet it is killing thousands of Americans.

Conformity is a situation of changing one’s behavior in order to match the actions of the society around the person. The social influence cause people to agree or even behave like the majority of the people in the specific group so that the group can perceive them as normal. Solomon Asch (1956) was interested to know the act of people in conformity pressure. Because of that, he created an experiment to investigate the process by asking college students in a group of eight to match the lengths of different lines. The experiment shows that 95% of the students correctly match 12 lines without pressure of group. Ash repeats the experiment by changing the situation. The students now need to hear answers of five other people who are actually confederates

As we know, norms are social expectations that guide our behavior. In this paper, I will discuss norm violations that I’ve observed, and my own personal norm violation that I committed. I will describe what happened, what was done, and the reactions of the people around when these norms begat. I will also discuss the significance of folkways, mores, values, and sanctions to my observations.

As I have been constantly reminded throughout the duration of this course, deviance can have many definitions. For the purpose of this paper, I will used the relativist definition: deviance is behaviors that illicit a definition or label of deviance. However, behaviors or acts are not inherently deviant. They become so when the definition of deviance is applied. So the focus is not on why individuals violate norms, but instead how those norms are constructed. Norms are rules of behavior that guide people’s actions (Inderbitzin, Bates and Gainey 2015:3). They are society’s rules of appropriate behavior. Norms are generally broken down into three categories: laws, mores, and folkways. Laws are the strongest norms backed by official sanctions or a more formal response. Mores are “moral” norms that may generate outrage if broken. And folkways are everyday norms that do not generate much uproar if they are violated.

Social norms can dictate and justify how people behave. In order to justify their actions, some people

An example of how social norm effects people’s behavior online, can be showed through the topic of eating behavior. Social networks have created a place where information can be post about what other people think/ does and what they expect them to do. So, if someone say’s eating burgers make you fat, from Chapter 3 of Nudge two possible things can influence a person information and peer pressure. Information affects behavior in this situation because other people opinions convey what they think is best for you. Peer pressure affects Information affects behavior in this situation as people conform to others ways to avoid one’s

We live in a society where we have to follow a certain structure in our lives. If someone were to do something out of the ordinary it is considered to be a norm violation. Although, sometimes there could also be exceptions to those norm violations. Throughout this experience of committing my own norm validation and observing a few validations from people living their normal lives, I gained knowledge of how society reacts to these unusual norms.

The Wall Street Journal article speaks upon social norms and how they come about. In the beginning of the article Wang analyzes how behavior is developed by what people deem to be appropriate, desirable, and correct. She goes on to indicate that psychologists are examining how, “the often-unspoken rules of a group, shape not just our behavior but also our attitudes.” She signifies how norms contribute to a central human social purpose, assisting us on who is in the group or who is merely an outsider to the norm. Wang informs us that little is known about how attitudinal norms are initiated in groups. Surprisingly, researchers say that those who devise the trend or norm are usually isolated from the group, being apart of the group might restrict one’s potential. Wang enlightens the reader that group pressure is a forceful pressure over health behaviors, for example, drug use and alcohol use. There is also another side to adapting into these social norms. Wang argues that, “observation of others' behavior can also result in misperceptions of the norm, which in turn can cause the actual norm

Social norm is the understanding people can influence our behavior in day to day basis. In social norms in society there is implicit rules which, is known as the not spoken but, you learn them when you deviate the rule by breaking the social norms in society such as, values, beliefs, attitudes, morals and behavior. People tend to follow the norms of society or the group. But, not following the social norms of society, individuals might think your deviant. However, social norms can be biased sometimes because, every culture has different norms and values. For example, shaking hands between both genders is very common in western countries because, it's seen as a norm. Whereas, in other parts of the world handshake between men and women can

Social Psychology has always been a key element in our understanding of human behaviour. Conformity plays a big part in the history of social psychology; conformity (also known as Majority Influence) is a type of social influence that involves a person changing their thoughts and beliefs in order to fit into a group. An example of this is during WW2, in which Hitler used his dominating opinions and authority to influence the Nazis and obscure their views, which lead them to conform to the horrendous orders that were given during the war. Therefore social psychology can help us understand how a certain phrase, appearance, status, or opinion can influence different behaviours in different cultures. However, certain cultures are more susceptible to conform. This links to the idea of Gerard’s (1955) development of social theory, normative social influence, this consists of the desire to ‘fit in’ and obtain social approval, which results in avoiding punishment, exclusion and ridicule. Two important studies that have been conducted by Asch and Milgram are great examples of how conformity and normative social influence can affect people’s behaviours.

During our lecture, it was stated, “ The norms we develop for the sake of practice are justified only to the degree that they solve the problems we presently face.” “If that doesn’t work, we have social reconstruction to make it better.” Within the American, and German sociological traditions, how are norms developed, upon which grounds is a norm considered socially and morally acceptable? Do people obey norms because what they consider a norm makes the society a “good society”. George Herbert Mead for the American Tradition, believing in adapting, and Max Weber for the German

A norm is a rule of behavior of individuals in society or groups, Emile Durkheim sociological founder considered norms to be social factors that exist in individual’s society of independence that creates the shapes of our behaviors and thoughts (Crossman, 2017). In the terms of not having sociality without social control the society would have no function without enforcing social orders that make daily life and the complex division of labor possible (Crossman, 2017). Social order is produced by ongoing life longs process of socialization that individual experience. Through the process of stages of growing up when we are taught the norms, behavioral rules and appropriate interaction that is common to our families. The process of how