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Societal influence
Societal influence
How social norms affect human behaviour essay
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As people socialize, they create interactions whose products are influential to act back upon the people to determine or constrain actions. Moreover, social interactions may be likened to a theatre whereby people are the actors as the rest of the people are the audience. These other people actively observe the role-playing and respond by reacting to the performances. However, people’s behaviors tend to change when they are alone as they get rid of the roles they play in front of others. Social concepts are mental constructs that represent people in a simplified form, such as the idea of a social class, differences between groups due to culture, power, or other characteristics. However, concepts may be operationalized or abstract, whereby …show more content…
Norms thus are the means through which people express their values in behavior. Students in higher learning institutions have to follow certain rules and regulations in addition to their learned behaviors, such living amicably with their peers. These norms are passed down to generations as new students enroll to the institutions and follow the set rules and regulations as they specify what should and should be done. Moreover, it is a norm in schools to cooperate with the lecturers and the administration to make the education environment …show more content…
As people lead their everyday lives, they perform various tasks that bring order to their lives and that of others. This is made possible as the social structure gets coordinated and integrated to achieve order rather than chaos. Students in an institution are obliged to conform to certain norms and values as specified by the institutions themselves. Moreover, outside schools caste distinctions and social classes play an integral role in influencing people’s behavior. However, it may be hard to influence the behavior of people brought up in a metropolitan
Pursuing a personal desire and choosing to conform to societal expectations is a challenging decision to make. A person must decide if their personal desire is worth risking the shame and judgment of others or is conforming the route to take because it is easier. When pursuing a personal desire one must ask itself if it is worth the hardship to accomplish one's desire or if it is best left alone and repressed, in hopes of finding comfort in conformity. John Laroche from The Orchid Thief expresses his personal desire without a care for conformity or societal expectations. Nevertheless, Laroche never stopped being strange as he grew up with fascinations of many objects such as orchids, turtles, old mirrors and fish tanks.
In society, it's difficult to go against the norm. Individuals are compelled to act a specific way, or look a specific way in order to be accepted. For instance, teenagers may encounter pressure from their peers to partake in specific exercises that may not be moral, since they feel the need to fit in. This weight of conformity isn't just present in reality; it can be found in literature as well. The story "St. Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised by Wolves" by Karen Russell depicts that in order to conform to society, individuals abandon their selflessness and compassion and become selfish and apathetic.
The class system in our society and the environment we grow up in significantly shapes our social beliefs, our behavior...
Socialization occurs within this perspective, individuals learn the rules of a group, as this theory highlights all members of society has a role to play. Social class is not an issue with this theory although value and ethic’s consensus is essential for effective functioning within society.
To violate a social norm, i will be greeting strangers in a nontraditional way. This norm acts as a mechanism of social control by getting people to give an approved reaction to meeting strangers. It allows us to be friendly without getting too personal. Normally when we greet a stranger we say something along the lines of, “Hello, how are you?”, and the other person responds by saying something like, “Good, how about you?”. Instead I will respond by giving them some unusual greetings to break this social norm.
I do not take the elevator a lot in my day to day life because I live on the second floor in my residence hall and my farthest I have to travel to get to class is three flights of stairs. I never see the need to wait for the elevator, but even though I probably have not been on one for over four months, I still, like most people, remember the social norms that go along with riding in one. When you go in you either push the button for the floor you need or you ask someone to press the button for you. If you were having a conversation with someone either you wait to continue it when you get off or you lower your voice considerably. These rules obviously only apply if there are strangers in the elevator with you. If you are alone in an elevator you can essentially do anything (that still follows all of the laws. You could sing to yourself, run in place, or even play patty cake and no one would know. The problem is, once someone gets on the elevator with you, these behaviors are now breaking a norm. I decided to take this concept of a quiet environment
Cialdini, Robert B., Trost, Melanie R. "Social Influence: Social Norms, Conformity, and Compliance." Gilbert, Daniel T., Fiske, Susan T., Lindzey, Gardner. The Hand Book of Social Psychology, Volume 2. New York: McGraw Hill, 1998. 151-192.
People interact with other humans every day, whether it be in a group or individual setting. When people interact with others, it can be a good or bad experience. While at work, school, or even home, people are in constant contact with each other in some form. When we are children, our friends and family influence us. As we age, our peers continue to influence us. Social influence is studying how people are affected by interacting with each other and is an interesting part of what makes us unique (Matlin, 2013). In order to understand social influence, it needs to be looked at in three main categories: conformity, compliance, and obedience. Conformity, compliance, and obedience are important factors to understanding social influence.
A city which conforms to the popular misconception of modern town planning, that is; symmetry, balance and order of structure has the tendency to be monotonous, utilitarian and unfulfilling. As a journey is commenced by an individual or group through a city’s urban fabric; physical transitions, spatial significance, relationships and material manipulations translate into a dynamic grammar which either hinders or excites the inherited human response which is perceived by those undertaking the journey. At this level of consciousness we are dealing with a series of intuitive experiences and subconscious emotive responses stemming from sequential and sudden revelations which are imposed on the traveller by the city’s physical attributes; often
The social norm we will attempt to violate would be talking loudly, singing and dancing in public places. The social norm acts as an mechanism of social control because when the norm is being broken within a group of people they would most likely show a specific reaction and response to the behavior that we would be demonstrating.
In every society, there is conformity and nonconformity, although we may not notice it. Conformity is when someone is doing the same thing as others because they do not want to be the only one doing differently. Example, if there was a whole class raising their hands would you want to be the only one with your hand down, no so you would raise it with the rest of the class to not look like you don't know anything. This is called social pressures it when a large group is doing something and you're the only one not then you want to be doing whatever that large group is doing.
The Values and Norms are affected by a certain number of factors inside the society such
While mass culture fostered conformity Americans preferred and been known for their prominent individual identities. The further mass culture pushed conformity, the debate became one in which Conformity and communism were equated and that mass culture was creating a conformist society that could easily succumb to the faults of communism. Billy Graham preached about the rise of a new mass culture and America's prosperity and the misuse of it being the equivalent of idolatry. Ironically, religion was becoming a part of mass culture during the same period. Graham also preached about the common link between Christian teachings and American values he also warned against the evils of communism which he called a great sinister anti-christian movement masterminded by Satan.
Social institutions are an important element in the structure of human societies. They provide a structure for behavior in a particular part of social life. The five major social institutions in large societies are family, education, religion, politics, and economics. While each institution does deal with a different aspect of life, they are interrelated and intersect often in the course of daily life. For example, for schools to be able to exist they rely on funding from the government. This is an intersection between politics and education. Social institutions affect individual lives through other aspects of society such as culture, socialization, social stratification, and deviance. This paper will focus on the social institution of education, and how it affects individual lives through socialization, deviance, and social stratification.
Individuality vs. Conformity: School uniform policy or not at De La Salle University? De La Salle University (DLSU), a private and prestigious university in the Philippines, does not require students to wear uniforms. Sutton (1975) defined clothing as “a reflection of man’s mores and values, a measure of his inventive and decorative impulse, and an illustration of his culture and of his response to the pressures of his society” (p. vii).It implies that each individual is granted the natural freedom to express one's own self by selecting which to wear. Philippines is a country that “guarantees the freedom of religion and the right to freedom of expression”, and, “It is also a State Party to the core human rights treaties that touch on the question of religious practices, including clothing”(Republika Ng Pilipinas, 2013, p. 1).However,there seem to be issues related to the behaviors of studentsin terms of habitual disregard to minor policiesthat are still ongoing in DLSU such asdress code violation and disrespectful acts in class. Furthermore, there is another issue concerning It is the time to discuss if it is beneficial to modify the DLSU dress code into a school uniform policy.