While looking at Human Sciences and Natural Sciences as areas of knowing and memory, emotion, intuition and language as ways of knowing, we can see that shared knowledge can shape personal knowledge. Most knowledge is shared and in many cases shared knowledge exists prior to personal knowledge and plays a significant role in formulating it. Through the Human Sciences shared knowledge can be defined as knowledge that is based on cultural norms. Personal knowledge is defined as knowledge that is obtained by experience and perspective such as memories and emotions, personal knowledge can be something that an individual knows that others also know, therefore it is personal and shared, however, knowledge can also be just personal for example the …show more content…
Conformity is the most common form of social influence where one matches their attitudes, beliefs and behaviours to group norms. This tendency can be in response to group pressure, which may take different forms such as peer pressure, bullying etc. Solomon Asch (1951) carried out an experiment that investigated the extent to which group pressure affected a person to conform to a ‘vision test’. He used a lab experiment using students from a college in the USA. Asch put a naïve participant in a room with seven confederates who were instructed to answer incorrectly to the test. The results showed that 75% of participants conformed, giving the incorrect answer at least once. He used a control group to validate these results and found that less than 1% of participants gave the wrong answer. This research can be used to show that shared knowledge shapes personal knowledge as people conform to group presser either because they believe the group is better informed than they are or just because they want to fit …show more content…
It is suggested that there are six emotions that are experienced across all cultures; happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust. This would illustrate emotion as a way of acquiring shared knowledge because everyone understands the same things from it. However, there seems to be many examples of non universal, culturally bound emotions, such as the Chinese notion of ‘sad love’, a feeling of sadness with added intensity and complexity by love. Therefore another view is that emotions are not naturally based and that they in fact depend on social consciousness. For example, the emotion shame seems to come from a notion of right and wrong. Different cultures have differences in their moral codes therefore they would experience shame differently. The idea here is that emotion is dependent on culture rather than being universal and is shaped by social predispositions. Both these ideas would suggest that emotion is not so personal and shared knowledge in culture may shape the way emotions are
So far, conformity has been discussed in terms of group identification and social roles. However, individuals also tend to change prior beliefs to seek group acceptance. Asch (1951) investigated the effect of group pressure on conformity by asking participants to make a line judgment with seven confederates that gave the same obviously incorrect answer. Yet, 37% of participants conformed by giving the incorrect majority answer, whereas in the absence of group pressure, less than 1% of participants conformed (Asch, 1951). There are implications on normative influence as individuals, despite knowing the majority opinion was incorrect, may conform to avoid social punishment (Breckler et al., 2005). However, Turner and colleagues (1987) argued
Solomon Asch developed and ran an experiment regarding the power of conformity that affects most populations. Psychologists have been attempting to fully understand the mental workings behind why people are so easily pressured into following others for the longest time. The main focus of psychologists, is to figure and understand what the causes are behind social conformity. Numerous terms are brought up when studying conformity. The “unspoken rules or guidelines for behavior in a group” (Hock 293) are labeled as social norms. When individuals are placed in large groups, the tendency is to lean with whatever the majority of the group thinks. The regular behavior of the individual tends to readjust to appease the superior crowd.
Conformity refers to an individual’s behavior that is performed because of group pressure, even though that pressure might not involve a direct request. Many people want to think that they are conformist enough so that they are not looked upon as strange to others and nonconformist enough to demonstrate that they are capable of thinking by themselves. For many years, psychologists have been interested in human conformity. Usually when people are in groups, they behave according to how those in the group behave. That indicates that conformity can affect a person’s behavior and make a person do things that may be against their ethics, attitudes, and morals. The study of conformity was first studied in the 1950s by Solomon Asch. His experiments were very important to the study of conformity. Asch wanted to find out how conformity could influence behavior. He did not want to focus on the general concepts like ethics, morals, attitudes, and belief systems. Instead, he focused on a more obvious concept which was perceptional conformity. Since he performed the experiment on a simple task, he was able to study conformity in a controlled environment. Asch wanted to apply group pressure to the experiment so he could manipulate a person’s behavior. For the experiment, he made three pairs of cards with three different lengths of vertical lines on one side. On the other side, there was a single line that was the same length ...
The most basic concept in social psychology is conformity. Conformity is the idea that behaviour or a belief is changed in order to follow, or conform, to what is considered the “norm.” One of the oldest experiments to support this notion was conducted in 1935 by Muzafer Sherif (Song, Ma, Wu, Li, 2012 p. 1366). There are two different types of
Solomon Asch’s experiment in “Opinions and Social Pressure” studied a subject’s ability to yield to social pressure when placed within a group of strangers. His research helped illustrate how groups encourage conformity. During a typical experiment, members of the group were asked by the experimenter to claim two obvious mismatched lines were identical. The single individual who was not privy to this information was the focal point of the experiment. Twelve out of eighteen times the unsuspecting individual went along with the majority, dispelling his beliefs in favor of the opinions of the group.
Conformity, compliance and obedience are behavioural consequences of social influence (real or imagined social pressure) that occur in the presence of a group or other individuals (Elsenbroich & Xenitidou, 2012). Often these concepts are misinterpreted as being the same or even synonymous and while they do have similarities they are also very dissimilar. In social psychology conformity, compliance and obedience are distinct concepts that coincide due to their effect on behaviour in the presence of others. Pascual, Line Felonneau, Guéguen & Lafaille (2013) define conformity as an altering of behaviour and beliefs in an individual in order to reflect the behaviour and beliefs of the group that holds influence, though Myers (2014) emphasises that
Participants were not under any explicit demand to conform, as they received no physical or verbal coercion to do so. The specific hypothesis centered on the idea, “if group pressure can play influence and effect individuals perception, decision and attitudes”. The independent variable will be “Procedure”, and the dependent variable is the “level of conformity did change”.
This essay concerns emotions and controversial arguments based on whether emotions are universal or a learned phenomenon. Most of the research in to cross cultural Psychology surround their attention on the biological aspect of emotions as being the primary source of the occurrence of emotions and has been the subject of numerous studies. However, culture is also known to affect and provoke emotional experiences. This essay will discuss the position of emotions from a Universalist view and from a cultural view. The following approach will focus on the universality of emotions.
The second motive that explains why people conform according to Deutsch and Gerard, (1955) is based on informational social influence. According to Festinger, (1950, 1954 in Hogg & Vaughan 2007) this type of influence is associated with uncertainty. Here individuals are uncertain and lack knowledge as to how to behave in certain situations. Festinger referred to this as social comparison in which individuals are not fully confident about their beliefs, attitudes and opinions and therefore yield to majority in order to be correct. This occurs particularly under ambiguous conditions and is clearly demonstrated in Asch’s (1956 in Hogg and Vaughan 2007) and Sherif’s (1936 in Hogg and Vaughan 2007) studies in which participants converged on similar answers particularly when the tasks became extremely difficult for them to be able to rely on their own judgments (in Bailey et al.
Elliot Aronson (2012) provides a definition of conformity, two social psychological processes that underlie a conformity and cited examples of reasons why people conform in the book, The Social Animal. Aronson (2012) defines a conformity as “a change in a person’s behavior or opinion as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people” (p.19). In accordance with Aronson’s (2012) definition of conformity, people do conform owing to the social influence, which are two main social psychological processes: belonging and getting information.
Before going into how we manage knowledge, maybe we ought to take a look at ourselves. What makes us tick? You know, get out a species microscope and watch us strutting around, sleeping, eating, drinking, filing things and procreating. Well, sure. No subject too large. What are we? Why do we have so much trouble getting along? As genomic research increasingly reveals, we are separated from our fellow creatures by less than we once imagined, or might have wished for. Once we thought we were different from all those other creatures. There was a time not long ago when we imagined ourselves to be a maker and user of tools, and uniquely so. We thought this defined us. We were THE CREATOR of tools. This idea of ourselves, this notion of Man-the-Tool-User lasted for nearly a century, right up to the moment some one noticed a chimp breaking off a branch to retrieve ants from an ant-hill. Not that man isn't a tool-user and tool-maker of the first order. Think about some of our tools: clay tablets, printing presses, TVs, computers, hard drives, and atomic bombs of one kind or another. The list is staggering, but perhaps our tools are only by-products of somethi...
Conformity is defined as the compliance with social standards and laws in a particular culture, environment, society and time. If this occurs the individual changes their attitudes, beliefs or actions to align more holistically with those in the surrounding groups and environment, as a result of real or perceived group pressure. This is ultimately a direct result of the power which a group has over the individual. There are two types of conformity, normative conformity, and informational conformity. Normative conformity is motivated by the desire to be liked and accepted in society. This is most widely known as peer pressure. For example, a student begins smoking because their peers are smoking,
The definition of truth is 'that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality' or 'a fact or belief'. Truth is both objective and subjective and I seek to derive to what extent are personal and shared knowledge questions valid. Shared knowledge is objective, highly structured, systematic in its nature and the product of more then one individual. An example of shared knowledge is, Physics for example. A construct of knowledge that is shared. Many have access to it and can contribute to it. In this case shared knowledge is shown as an objective and agreed upon entity. Physics, a science in this case is a tangible process backed up with evidence. Where as personal knowledge is subjective, an individual's interpretative belief and is shaped
This not only relates to the overall idea of the individual’s actions based on group influence but also alludes to the sub idea of the group of the classroom and how the individual does not want to be seen as lesser by giving a wrong answer. In doing this the group influences the individual to go along with the main idea of the group. In this experiment when given three lines to decide which one is more closely related to the original line it was found that the individual, that was part of the experimental group, would often pick the wrong answer to go along with the group (Baron, 2012). The influence stems from the group all choosing the wrong answer then the individual begins to believe that there is something wrong with the answer they had originally chosen due to the fact that the group overall has made a majority answer. The group itself can present tangible influence when they look to the individual to answer. That moment when the group looks toward the individual is where the influence becomes more concrete and the individual’s own beliefs begin to waiver because they believe that perhaps they are wrong and the group is correct
Scientific knowledge is the understanding of someone or something. This includes facts, descriptions, information, skills, and much more. Scientific knowledge is the base of our life, and it is ever changing. In the 20th and 21st century, our knowledge of science has been significantly altered. This has sprung a great change in the world, and in society. With new advancements in technology, biology, and new ideas being introduced, our scientific knowledge is changing, and that is having a great effect on society.