Conformity: Social Influence

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Recommended: Features of conformity

Renua Raje

Psychology HL

Conformity can be defined as adjusting your feelings, behavior or thoughts so that they correspond with those in a group or an individual. This is a way values are passed down through cultures or communities. It can also be called social influence. There are multiple different forms of conformity with a magnitude of reasons. Multiple psychologists have performed study cases to investigate this further. The pressure of conformity makes people change their ideals of beliefs in fear of being contradistinct. There are the three main types of conformity. The first one being compliance; this mains to adapt your own behavior so that it corresponds with the collective opinion of the group. This is even if you silently disagree with the opinion put forth. The second is called identification this is changing ones mannerisms …show more content…

The truth is their a multiple reasons that effect different people in different ways. One being informational influence, this is when another person convinces us that our original thought or statement is correct. In addition, wish to avoid punishment this is fear or being ridiculed by the people, this is due to the fact that we are conscious about our social image. Also, a sense of powerlessness, this is when a person does not think what they are going to say holds any importance, this means they are unlikely to change what is considered the social norm. Moreover, a lack of perceived alternatives, this is similiar to a false dileama when a person is not aware of the other choices they have but to conform. When a persons opinion differs from another they tend to fear rejection this is rick of disapproval. Another factor that effects conformity is absense of communication, when one person knows more information than another but keeps it to themselves hence changing their own opinions but not the rest of the group. All of these factors can be called controlled variable in an

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