In the story " Groups and Conformity" by Michael R. Solomon, it talks about how people in groups are more influential then a individual person would be. In the opening it talkes about a guy whos name is Zachary. Zachary is a business man during the week and on weekends you can find him riding his motorcycle or with his group of motorcycle friends. You see Zachary is a part of the many individual 's who are in a reference group. A reference group is based on a individual or groups; evaluations, aspirations, and or behaviors. Reference groups are important because of two reasons. Reason one is because of the recent research on the smoking cessation: And the powerful impact it has on reference groups. According to the author, Michael Solomon, …show more content…
One of the examples that Michael Solomon (author) gives us is that when we go to buy different produts others might not influence us, but on the other hand knowing what produts other people like might just influence us to a great deal. There is also three types of reference groups. They are; the Name-Letter Effect, the Normative Influence, and the Comparative Influence. The Name-Letter Effrct is when we bond faster with people who share our names or something as smiple as our initials then we do with others who don 't. One of the examples that the author uses is that people whose surname is Lane tend to have addresses that include the word Lane, not street. The second one is Normative Influence: this groug has standards of conduct that they set and enforce. Acorrding to the author our parents may play a important part in this group. Two of the important issues are attiudes on marriage or where to go to college. The third one is Comparative Influence: because it affects members ' decisions about specific motorcycle purchases. Acorrding to the author , Zachary talks about how he has already spent thousands off dollars on parts and accessories sine he has been in his …show more content…
The avoidance group is people who we want to distance ourselves from. The author states that the reason we do this is because we want our behavior to be like the group wants us to be, and if anybody disagrees we stay away from them. The final group is We like to do it in groups. The first point is Phenomenon Deindividuation. Phenomenon Deindividuation is where a individual indentities becomes lost with in a group. The second point is Group shopping. Group shopping and behavior and home shoppong parties: People more likely to buy more when shopping in a group, where pressure to crnform may be intense (bandwagon effect). The reason we do this is because if we dont buy what everyone else is buying then we can become a outcast. The last part of the story is Conformity. Conformity is a change in beliefs or actions as a reaction to real or imagined group. The norms of conformity are unspoken rules that grovern many aspects of consumption. There are five factors that influence of conformity. They are: Cultural Pressures, Fear Of Deviance, Commitment, Group Unanimity, Size, and Expertise and finally Susceptibility to Interpersonal
The influence that the behaviors of groups have is one of the most important factors that help shape and contribute to a functional society. With their works, William Edward Burghardt
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.
Doris Lessing uses this to state that individuals will conform to the majority because of society’s pressures and lose individualism. Lessing uses the fact that because of western societies are well educated in different ways, free to make choices that this makes the individual, but people never think to look at their lives and see that they are no longer and individual because they are conforming to the pressures of society. She uses the fact that people often socialize with “like-minded” people often forces to make decisions that our peers make. She declares that, “We find our thinking changing because we belong to a group. It is the hardest thing in the world to maintain an individual dissident opinion, as a member of a group.” She goes on to review several experiments that involved conforming to groups.
Cialdini, Robert B, & Trost, Melanie R. (1998). Social Influence: Social Norms, Conformity, & Compliance. Interpersonal Phenomena. Retrieved from: angel.elmira.edu/section/default.asp?id=w114_PSY3010_01.
In the experiment, the group of individuals that were heavily influenced that their judgement was poor had no choice but to join the group’s decision despite having opposing views. Similarly, Eric Forman had to stop attending his disco roller-skating events because his friend group was totally against it. Lastly, Varun ended up telling his girlfriend he cheated because his respect from the group was on the line. All in all, this theory that people have to listen to other individual’s opinions to grade their worth has become obvious through these
Conformity, or going along with the crowd, is a unique phenomenon that manifests itself in our thoughts and behaviors. It’s quite simple to identify countless examples of the power of conformity in virtually all aspects of social life. Conformity influences our opinions and relationships with others, often to a higher extent than we realize. It is posited that people generally conform to the group in order to fit in and avoid rejection or because they truly believe the group is more knowledgeable than they are. After analyzing numerous studies and experiments on the nature of conformity, one will find that the motive of social acceptance is the greatest driver of conformity.
“Conformity is a form of social influence that involves a change in behavior or belief so that one can fit in with a certain group” (McLeod). Such a change is a response to imagined (which involves the pressure of expectations or social norms) or real (which involves the presence of others) group pressure. Another definition of conformity can be “yielding to group pressures”. Group pressure can take many forms, for example persuasion, teasing, bullying, criticism etc. Conformity is also referred to as group pressure or majority influence. The term conformity is mostly used to show an agreement to the position of the majority, and this is brought about by either by the desire to be liked or to fit in, or just to match a social role. The aim of this paper is to argue that conformity is among people because they always live in groups-work groups, family, political, religious and social groups. At the same instance, they are adjusted to obey authority. A conformist mentality makes it easy for people to be influenced by others.
These reference groups helped shape us by providing us the means of how to behave in group settings in the proper manner, communication among people from all social classes, and gave us the ability to identify other social norms. My friends and their families taught me soft skills that I had not been exposed to within my family. “Soft skills are the character traits and difficult to teach interpersonal skills that characterize a person’s relations with other people. Soft skills have more to do with who we are than what we know. As such, soft skills encompass the character traits that decide how well one interacts with others, and are usually a definite part of one 's personality (www.investopedia.com).” “Soft skills are things like knowing how to dress, act and present oneself or the ability to work well with other people (Manza Pg. 417).” For example, I learned proper table etiquette such as not starting to eat before everyone was served. This was not something that was taught at my home. I learned proper clothing attire based on the occasion and or different adult surrounding. The benefits of these soft skills became invaluable later and into adulthood by helping me in the real world. I learned what to say and when to say it in conversational circumstances that I might have been unprepared for otherwise were now familiar to me. This allowed me to carry on conversations and
Conformity is defined as the occurrence of people yielding to social pressures as a result of pressure from a group of their peers; when faced by the pressure to conform, people will alter their behaviour and actions to fit the norm demonstrated by their peers (Lilienfield et al., 2012). Conformity is studied so that is can be understood and used in society to facilitate positive outcomes, and help avoid situations where peoples’ predisposition to conform leads to negative consequences (Lilienfield et al., 2012). By understanding conformity and other social processes society as a whole is able to understand themselves better and motivates them to work on improving as a whole (Lilienfield et al., 2012).
Conformity is one kind of psychology behavior .The behavior often happened in the group .Also the behavior always happen in the people life or study !There are 3 types response to social influence in the psychology zone .first is compliance ,scorned one is identification ,last one is internalization .Compliance is publicly conforming to the behavior or views of others in a group but privately maintaining one’s own views.For example:when the personal with a group of friends who support a particular basketball team ,the personal might not reveal that you support a different one ,even if asked directly .Identification is adopting the views of or behavior of a group both public and privately cause you value membership of that group .For example:when the people from long away move to the university ,they may begin to question the life style ,they had previously taken for granted .New students often enthusiastically adopt the dress and behave again aways young student do this .internalization is a conversion or true change of private views to match these of the group .For example :a person seating for some greater meaning to life maybe influenced to convert to a religious faith if the member of that faith seem able to provide the answers being searched for
In her essay “Group Minds,” Doris Lessing discusses our paradoxical ability to call ourselves individuals and our inability to realize that groups define and influence us. We, as humans, hold individualism in the highest regard yet fail to realize that groups diminish our individuality. Lessing writes, “when we’re in a group, we tend to think as that group does... but we also find our thinking changing because we belong to a group” (p. 334). Groups have the tendency to generate norms, or standards for behavior in certain situations. Not following these norms can make you stand out and, therefore, groups have the ability to influence our thoughts and actions in ways that are consistent with the groups’. Lessing’s essay helps set the context to understand the experiments that social psychologists Solomon Asch, Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo conducted to explain conformity and obedience.
So why do people conform? Psychologists believe there are two main reasons: normative influence and informative influence. Kaplan and Miller define normative influence as conforming due to “concerns about the group and one’s position in it,” and informative influence as conforming due to “concerns about being accurate and arriving at correct solutions” (Kaplan and Miller, 1987).
Through the onset of peer pressure and family relations we see how these influence individuals into making certain decisions and acting in a way that will suit others. Meditations explains how even though it would be normal to want to follow our in-group that we must be able to break free of those confines that tie us down and become our own independent persons. It goes on to explain in a broad sense of group dynamics how our social norms and relations can cause individuals to sway in their own personal thoughts and feelings. An example of this would be discussing political preferences among friends and family. A person could change their own views based on what their family believes in and tells them about certain parties as they are growing up; this sways them to assimilate into group beliefs despite their own in order to blend in without any complications. This concept is not limited to family, but more common amongst peer groups and friendships. A good example would be when one wants to smoothly integrate into their desired group. Said group could have a political standpoint of conservatism while the individual’s personal views are liberal. To merge into the faction, they could state that their political party is the same as their peers, thus eventually altering their claims to being conservative. In “The Need to Belong can Motivate
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.
After reading the text You May Ask Yourself by Dalton Conley and doing research on reference groups, I realized that I am apart of and look at reference groups as I go about with my activities. A major Informal reference group that I belong to is my family. My family especially my older siblings would be considered an informal reference group. Growing up all my siblings were athletes starting at a young age, and had major dedication and commitments to their sports. Being that I am the "baby" of the family, I always looked up to what they did and even what they are doing now for guidance. Two of my siblings were divers and went to division I schools, my other sibling also played field hockey at division II. I also shared the interest in sports,