With Friends Like These By Dorothy Rowe Analysis

Impacts of Social Influence
Social influence can vary in friendships, group activities, and social groups. It can lead a person to make beneficial or poor decisions. Social influence impacts friendships, the feeling of validation, group activities, and social groups; in positive, negative, and neutral impacts.
“With Friends Like These . . .”, an informational text by Dorothy Rowe, informs the reader about the impacts of building friendships. For example, Rowe talks about how building friendships can positively impact a person because it can build a person to feel an important sense about him/herself: “Friendships are essential to a [person’s] sense of who [they] are” (141). Rowe writes friendships can help a person to build trust in their friend because it helps them feel validated: “Friends are central to this all-important sense of validation” (141). This quote explains companionship can lead a neutral impact because it makes a person

want to feel validated by others than their friends. Rowe writes this to contrast the impacts of social influences in friendships and the construction of a person’s personality.
“Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey Connect”, a science writing by Frans de Waal, reveals being in a group activities can influence an individual’s decision making.

He explains that being involved in group activities may force a person to commit to certain conditions that are undesirable, causing a neutral impact: “your entire group becomes sleepy and settles down, so you too become sleepy” (Waal 124). This quote explains it is normal for others to do what they see is being done around them because it makes them feel validated to others in the group. Furthermore, he demonstrates that an individual who does a certain role differently than others is more likely to feel self-conscious and do the same thing, resulting in a negative impact: “The individual who doesn’t stay in tune with what everyone else is doing will lose out . . .” (Waal 124-125). This quote means a person who does not follow the same methods that others do is more likely to feel left out. With this, Waal further explains the impacts of group

activities.
“Episode 38: Social Influence” from Crash Course: Psychology, an episode written by Kathleen Yale, discloses the impacts of social groups. Yale uses groupthink to describe why groups make wrong decisions: “they're too caught up in the unique internal logic of their group” (Yale). This quote explains when a social group has this moment, it can cause a negative impact due to repeating the same mistake in the future. Moreover, she explains the concept of normative social influence: “the idea that we comply in order to fuel our need to be liked or belonged” (Yale). This quote explains normative social influence is a neutral impact because people want to be validated and treated the same as others. Yale establishes this to demonstrate the impacts of social influence in social groups.
The impacts of social influence are clear to prove the stereotypical types of social groups. Because all people have unique experiences and thoughts toward social influence, the impacts of social influence vary in friendships, group activities, and social groups; in positive, negative, and neutral ways.