Social Influence

According to Webster Dictionary, conformity is defined as, “in compliance of rules, laws, or standards.” Mark Twain’s, “Cone-pone Opinions,” demonstrates how society reacts to new conformities; individuals eventually conform to popular ideas and inevitably abandon these ideas for something greater. Twain states, “It is our nature to conform; it is force which not many can successfully resist.” (Twain 2). The reason people conform is not for self-approval, but rather, for the approval of others.

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.

Additionally, Spector (1983) utilised Rotter’s scale on 157 students to evaluate whether conformity is linked with locus of control. He discovered that participants with a higher internal locus of control weren’t as likely to conform only in circumstances of normative social influence, where people adapt in order to be accepted, whereas there was no significant difference between the two groups in situations of informational social influence, where people conform for their need to be right. (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955) This finding proposes that normative social influence

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

Compliance refers to an individual’s response when given an instruction from somebody else. An individual is more likely to comply with that instruction if it comes from a person that is liked or if it fits in with own beliefs and opinions. Conformity is the process of going along with a group in order to be accepted or to fit in. Social pressure can cause an individual to change something about themselves like dress sense or what music genre they listen to just to follow the crowd. To add to that, another way why a person’s behaviour may change when part of a group is due to obedience.

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,

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”.

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.

As social beings, with each one of us connected to a whole network of other humans and their associated beliefs, opinions and traits practically every conscious second of the day, it is inevitable that we will be subject to external influences. These influences come in all shapes and forms from a whole multitude of sources, occurring both consciously and unconsciously, instantaneously or over a prolonged period of time, with the potential effect of these influences ranging from the immaterial to the life-changing. While our susceptibility to influence from the connected world around us can be hard to measure given our constant exposure to several different influences, social psychologists have been able to study the world of influence

Influence tactics are behaviours used to change behaviours, attitudes or opinions of influence others. Yukl, Lepsinger & Lucia (1992, cited in Hughes, Ginnett and Curphy 2015) are proponents of the Influence Behaviour Questionnaire, assessing nine types of influence tactics detailed

Informational Influence and Normative Influence are both categorized under conformity in sociology. Informational is basically when we conform to others behavior because we believe it provides information about reality. It is often when we care about getting the right answer and trying to be rational. It also deals with the "Maybe they know something I don't know" phenomenon. An example, could be choosing to eat at a busier restaurant opposed to the empty one, or imitating the locals when outside your country. In contrast, Normative Influence is when we conform to others behavior because they expect us to. This is when we believe conforming may have positive consequences, such as approval or the enhancement of our reputation, or when we believe not conforming may have negative consequences, such as disapproval or punishment. An example of Normative Influence is laughing at a joke you don't get, or agreeing with an opinion you believe in others.

Solomon Asch was a psychologist that conduced numerous expirments designed to illustrate the increasing conformity within social groups. The experiments also invesigated the effect the number of people present within the group had one the conformity rate. Asch hypothesized, “ that the majority of the people would not conform to something obviosly wrong; however, when surrounded by (other) individuals all voicing an incorrect answer, 75% of them(the participant) will conform to the groups answer” (Watzlawick 1976)

“Social influence is the process by which the actions of an individual or group affect the behavior of others” (Feldman 495). These influences are strongly experienced by members in the group. Every group is unique and is mostly guided by a particular norm and behavior. An individual in a group passively or actively allows himself to be influenced by the group just to have a sense of belongingness. In the bid to prevent being excluded or rejected from a group, some individuals overtly adhere to the norms of the group. “Thus, people conform to meet the expectations of the group” (Feldman 495).

Based on all the previously referred material, conformity is totally driven by social norms, norms that are not written but sometimes are more powerful than law; the way that a person conforms to society affects the level and type of his compliance to society’s requests. For example, if a person has as personal characteristic not to like altering his self-image/ presentation based on society’s preferences due to his intense belief in independence, it is possible that this person will comply more difficult because of external motivation instead of internal. On the other hand, this means that if a person has an internal compliance only to smile to people who knows and not to