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Social impacts of peer pressure
Social impacts of peer pressure
Conformity and non conformity
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Effects Of Group Pressure On Conformity
Mishal Fatima
Psychology Department, University of Karachi
Submitted to: Ma’am Zahra Barkat Ali
Date: 22nd May 2018
Abstract
The present study was conducted to see to what extent do people conform to group pressure. To witness this two hypothesis were developed in which (1) people will show less conformity and (2) there will be a significant difference in the scores of trait conformity scale. To achieve this phenomenon the experimental research design was used. A sample of 91 participants was taken by convenient sampling technique from The University of Karachi. We used Asch social conformity experiment and trait conformity scale which was a 5 point likert rating scale. The experiment was
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We being as human beings do have behaviors and attitudes which we keep on changing to adjust in our daily lives or to be like someone we admire to be like. Human behavior refers to the way that we interact with each other. It is mainly based on and influenced by many different factors for example values, attitude, perception, culture and even genetic make-up of a single human.
Human behavior can be very easily changed and it can be influenced by a majority of people or even a small group. The most common factor that causes a behavior to change is the social influence factor.
The change brought intentionally or unintentionally in the actions and behaviors of a person because of another person is called as social influence. The term of social influence can also be defined as the ways in which external factors that can alter the behavior of a person. Social influence is faced by all in our daily lives in one or another way.
Psychologists define conformity as yielding to group pressure, something which almost all of us do at one point or some of the times. (Eysenck,
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Conformity is the changing in the behavior of people to get fit in the society or to go along with the people that are around them. As we can see in some cases that people get influenced by the opinion of other people of a specific group and start act and behave like them to stay a part of that specific group in the society. Conformity can also involve people behaving like the majority of the people in the group and imitating their perceived normal behavior.
Conformity in a narrower sense are the behaviors and the views that can be discouraging of new upcoming ideas. It can discourage its members from questioning and debating the beliefs of the majority of the people in a society. These behaviors are often seen where the people are more reluctant to doubt the authority of the group due to the fear of being rejected by the other people or
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
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
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.
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”.
According to Leon Mann, conformity means ‘yielding to group pressures’. Everyone is a member of one group or another and everyone expects members of these groups to behave in certain ways. If you are a member of an identifiable group you are expected to behave appropriately to it. If you don’t confirm and behave appropriately you are likely to be rejected by the group. Like stereotypes, conforming and expecting others to conform maintains cognitive balance.
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 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, 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 in psychology is when the group influence is so strong that it will cause a person to change their thinking to match the group. This social construct has been studied in depth by Asch in his famous line drawing study. In this study, there was a group of people who were asked a question about which line on a card, that had three total lines, matched in size to a line on another card. The answers to these questions tended to be fairly obvious to which the right answer was. Although there would be a large group of people in a room answering these questions at the same time, all but one of the people would be confederates.
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
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,
Another influence that allow people to conform and fall under the pressure are when people are in the group. People tend to conform more when they are in groups compared to when they are more by themselves. How many people does it take for people to feel like they need to conform? Based on the data that was found in most people conform in bigger group because it goes along with peer pressure and just wanting to fit in (Levitan and Verhulst, 2016). Also, another reason is that people don’t like the feeling of being wrong.
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.
There are many social influences which have an effect or lasting effect on the behavior of an individual. Within many group scenarios, conformity and obedience play a large role in how people tend to think and behave, especially if they get carried away. Obedience refers to compliance to an authority figure or with others in a group. On the other hand, conformity refers to an individual changing their thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors to accommodate with the standards of a group or their peers. Both of which are pure examples of how human behavior changes based on certain social situations. Obedience and conformity both occur during situations of social facilitation, social loafing, and groupthink.