Conformity: Social Influence in Psychology Research Paper

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As Bandura (2018) showed, the social influence in psychology is very important to consider because there are essentially three types of agents of social influence that can impact one’s psychology: these agents are peers, groups and media. Peers consist of family and friends or people one sees in person. Groups include school, workplaces, church, organizations, clubs, teams and so on. Media includes social media, films, music, magazines, Internet, etc. The reason people are attentive to social influence is that people have a natural compulsion to want to conform so as to be able to fit in with what their peers or groups (Ciccarelli & White, 2017). Conforming to social norms is something that all people do because of the social nature of their psychology.

The concept of conformity is one that psychologists and social psychologists have long been trying to understand. Conformity is what allows people to be accepted by others. A non-conformist is one who rejects the prevailing norms of a group, peers, or the media. For example, a punk in the 1970s would have been seen as a non-conformist based on his attitudes, ideas, and manner of dress. However, by the end of the decade, punk itself became a group and thus had its own subculture to which people conformed so as to fit in. So one could be a non-conformist in so far as the mainstream cultural norms of society went—but when it came to being a punk one would act the same way, dress the same way and have the same ideas as other punks in the social group: they were simply conforming to the prevailing social norms of that group (Pendry & Carrick, 2001).

Ciccarelli and White (2017) point out that while most people are willing to conform to social norms, there is a danger of doing so, which is that people may embark in groupthink—which is dangerous because it means that people may not take personal responsibility for their own thoughts and actions: instead of thinking about whether what the leaders of the group are saying or what their peers are doing, they will go along with it because they figure that if it were wrong someone else would say something. If everyone in the group is thinking in that manner, then no one will stand up and question whether anything the group is doing is good or bad. This is the primary danger of group think. The example given by Ciccarelli and White (2017) is that in the aftermath of 9/11, the Bush Administration made the decision to invade Iraq based on faulty intelligence. Few people questioned this intelligence because they assumed that if it were wrong someone else would say something or stop the invasion from occurring.

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It turns out that everyone was engaged in groupthink and as a result a million Iraqis died in the aftermath of the invasion.

Another good example of how conformity and groupthink can be dangerous is the story of the Titanic. Those who built the ship entered into groupthink in terms of imagining like everyone else involved in the project that the ship was unsinkable. So they neglected to put enough lifeboats on the ship to carry all the passengers. When the ship went down many people died because no one had bothered to step out of the groupthink mindset and make the decision to act differently from how everyone else…

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…issue that adolescents especially face as they go through the challenge of understanding themselves and their place in society. They have to form a sense of self and an identity that is not dependent upon others—peers, groups or media—in order to be able to navigate the world. That identity must be shaped by a sense of values or principles—ideals about what one should be doing with oneself; otherwise the danger for that young person is that he will be like a leaf blowing in the wind, doing whatever those around him are doing and never really being strong enough to do what he knows or feels to be right.

Conformity issues are not just something that young people have to deal with, of course. Everyone has to deal with them. Old and young, male and female—conformity questions are always going to be there for them. However, in many cases conformity is a welcome behavior. For example, when one is converting to a new religion, he is expected to conform to the behaviors that the religious group promotes as being positive. A Catholic convert would be expected to marry in a church, to have children, and to oppose abortion. These are the norms that the conforming behavior seeks to demonstrate.

The knowledge gained in this research can be put to use in my personal life by allowing me to resist judging others and to help them in life decisions by allowing them room to think for themselves. Socrates was the first great teacher who advised against conformity just for the sake of conformity. However, conformity that is based on conviction of ideals is good, so long as the ideals are good and right.
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