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Social norms and their negative effects
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What factors affect the psychology of conformity
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Conformity is the compliance with the norms of a culture and society, occurring when individuals wish to align holistically with surrounding groups. Throughout my Personal Interest Project, I shall investigate the cultural agents contributing to this trend. I hypothesise that an individual’s interaction with society influences their response to social pressures. Thus, culture, gender, perception and time affect conformity.
I selected this topic, as I feel people are conforming further, and with the introduction of technology in our lives, people are feeling pressured. I am passionate about ‘social programming’, being the process where individuals learn to conform to their culture and society. When considering topics for my PIP, this seemed a logical choice.
This PIP will provide me with a deeper understanding of social conformity deepening my public knowledge and personal experience, by proving me with practical research experience. Through incorporating the qualitative and quantitative methodologies, I am provided with a deep understanding of the micro and macro world. This PIP
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Through surveys and experiments, concentrated within western Sydney, I am able to generalise trends within the region, which exemplifies the patterns of normative and informational conformity in wider society. Surveys and experiments are the best choices for this, as they have statistical significance and precise results. These quantitative methodologies are not open to bias interpretation, providing a reputable foundation. Interviews allow me to answer questions in an in-depth manner, providing me with a deeper understanding and a qualitative argument. Any ambiguities can be clarified and incomplete answers followed up. These methods are effective, providing a qualitative and quantitative argument, allowing me to gain an in-depth and broad insight, permitting me to determine trends within
The book A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is one great example of religious and cultural conformity. A young girl living in Afghanistan, Mariam, is sent to live with her father after her mother commits suicide. His wives are not accepting of Mariam because she has not been apart of their happy lives and they don’t want to have a stranger living with them. Also, religious and cultural expectations pressure them to convince Mariam’s father to marry her off to a much older man in Kabul. Her father and his wives conformed to what was socially acceptable in their society. Even though the wives wanted Mariam gone, her father did not, but still gave in. The pressure that made Mariam’s dad and his wives send her off was conformity, or to go with the flow of the rest of society. Their decision ultimately lead Mariam to have to conform to the new culture and role as a wife. The conformity in Afghanistan and more specifically in this book lead a young girl to be separated from her father and placed in a whole new place and had to figure it out basically in her own. Society is based upon different opinions and society should not want conformity because some people are pressured to do things that they don’t have the capability to do or might not agree
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
The novel, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley first published in 1932, presents a very bleak out look of what future society will be like. The novel presents a future of where almost total conformity is a carefully guarded aspect of society. Even before one is "decanted" they are conditioned to fill a specific roll and to act a certain way.
Fish, Jefferson M. "Looking in the Cultural Mirror." How Cultures Make People Conform. N.p., 18 Dec. 2012. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
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.
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.
“Social conformity has been practiced in societies around the world since ancient times,” and the reason it is so effective is that humans have an inherent need to be accepted as part of a group (Sadat). Furthermore, Hossna Sadat reports that:
The definition of conformity is 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. The motivation behind normative conformity is 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
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.
This chapter examines the socialization process that occurs to members of different groups of society which leads to social control or manipulation of members for the good or bad of society. Eitzen, Zinny & Smith discuss the major themes of social control and how they shape and enforce the conformity of others. The authors discuss how the pressures of social control either by law or society norms can cause great influence on members of society. However, the authors advise the reader that although people tend to conform to society influences, they do so not out of fright, but rather, because it is a choice they are willing to make. In other words members of society seem to prefer to go along with the majority because they prefer the predictability
As we grow up we are told to be individuals, but once we grow up we obey authority figures and change our beliefs to fit in with others. No matter what age we are we will always comply to a behavior or belief to fit in with a group different than ours or to be liked. We do not like to be judged or looked at as an outsider; this will remain the same in which ever situation we find ourselves in. Whether it be in a professional setting such as work or a social setting with friends. When thinking of conformity and obedience we mostly think of cults and prisons but it is not always the case.
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.
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
Although Asch himself did not conduct different cross-cultural studies of conformity, other researchers like Berry (1967) did conduct very similar experiments. Berry’s experiment was the same however focused on the Temne in Sierra Leone, and the Inuit’s of Canada. This found that different rates of conformity could be found in the differing cultures, as well as expectations on childrearing and lifestyle choices. This research thus extended Asch’s conformity study into an etic approach rather than focusing on an emic design. Therefore, it could be stated that social psychology and the research carried out by specific original psychologists has influenced the way society is interpreted today. The work carried out by Berry supports social psychology as it allows for a wider understanding of society globally, rather than purely focusing on the western civilisations that was the basis of Asch’s work. This study can help measure conformity, and the reasons for conformity, universally rather than an ethnocentric approach as was originally designed in
On a daily basis, people are being influenced by the people around them, whether it is directly or indirectly. A person’s thoughts, feelings and actions can influence and be influenced by society. These social interactions provide enough opportunity for the presence of people to influence and change behavior, views, and attitudes of an individual. There are several forms of social influences, such as conformity, which I will be discussing. Why we conform has been a topic of considerable interest to social psychologists in particular such as he classic and well-known studies of Muzafer Sherif and Solomon Asch. In addition to researching why we conform, there’s also the question of whether conformity is good or bad.