CONFORMITY: GROUP INFLUENCE IN ACTION

 Conformity : A type of social influence in which individuals change their attitude or behaviour in order to adhere or to stick to the existing social norms. Factors affecting Conformity: Cohesiveness, Group Size, and Type of Social Norms : Cohesiveness and Conformity : We are going to discuss how cohesiveness has impact on conformity. With respect to conformity, cohesiveness can be defined as the degree of attraction felt by an individual toward an influencing group. Groups with similar attitudes are more cohesive than groups with dissimilar attitudes, successful groups are more cohesive than unsuccessful groups, and groups with clear paths to goals are more cohesive than groups lacking clear paths. A classic finding of social psychology is that when cohesiveness (attraction) is high, pressures toward conformity are magnified.

This is a basic reason why most persons are more willing to accept social influence from friends or persons they admire than from others. 97 E.g., if we join a new college and we have been put in a group of students for project work. Over the period, you realize that they have conservative views about educational policies. It is interesting to think whether our own views change as a function of working together with these new friends. There is strong possibility that we may find ourselves agreeing with them more and more as time passes. It may happen because of cohesiveness i.e., Degree of attraction with the group of friends working on same project. 

Conformity and Group Size : 

Group size has the important effects on the tendency to conform i.e., the size of the influencing group. We are likely to conform to the opinion held by the group if the number of group members holding the same opinion is large i.e., group size is large. However, there is interesting finding which says that conformity increases with group size up to about three members, but then seems to level off. The possibility for this may be that subject conclude that group members are not expressing individual views but are actually working together to influence them. When too many people agree, therefore, this may be perceived as a signal and tendency to be cautious while conforming. Descriptive and Injunctive Norms : Descriptive norms are ones indicating what most people do in a given situation. They influence behaviour by informing us about what is generally seen as effective or adaptive behaviour in that situation. e.g., witnessing somebody blow out the cigarette before entering in to bus. In contrast, injunctive norms specify what ought to be donewhat is approved or disapproved behaviour in a given situation. e.g., a instruction displayed in the bus “Smoking is prohibited in the public places”. 

The Bases of Conformity: Why We Often Choose to “Go Along’-and What Happens after We Do : One of the basic question concerning group is as to what makes people to choose to go along with social rules or expectations instead of resisting them? The answer is primarily types of two needs possessed by all human being-the desire to be liked or accepted by others and the desire to be right and also the cognitive processes that lead us to view conformity as fully justified after it has occurred. Here are some of the tactics to make people conform to our opinions, decisions. 98 

The Desire to Be Liked : Normative Social Influence : One of the most successful tactics is that we can make conscious efforts to appear to be as similar to others as possible. From childhood, we learn that agreeing with the persons around us, and behaving as they do, causes them to like us. One important reason we conform is simple: we learn that doing so can generate the approval and acceptance we expect. This source of social influence-and especially of conformity-is known as normative social influence, since it involves making other alter their behaviour to meet our expectations. The Desire to Be Right; Informational Social Influence : There are many matters or topics on which we have strong desire to be correct or appropriate e.g., about questions like which colour of dress suits you best? Whether your political or social views are correct or not? or Which hair style suits you? However, there is difficulty in finding a system through which we can accurately get answer to these things? But the solution to these questions is obvious: to answer these questions, there is necessity of approaching other people. We use their opinion and their actions as guides for our own. The verbal and non-verbal feedback given by them helps us to satisfy question mentioned earlier to major extent. Obviously, such reliance on others can be another source of conformity, for in an important sense, other people’s actions and opinions define social reality for us. This source of social influence is known as informational social influence, since it is based on our tendency to depend upon others as a source of information about many aspects of the social world. Therefore, we conform to other people’s feedback because there is no availability of alternate system to get answers to some typical questions or topics discussed earlier. 

Justifying Conformity : The Cognitive Consequences of Going Along with the Group : 

As reported that some people who conform do so without any much thinking. They conclude that they are wrong and the others are right. For these people, conforming to others poses only a temporary dilemma, at most. However, for many persons, the decision to yield to group pressure and do what others are doing is not so straight but it is more complex. Such persons feel that their own judgement is correct, but at the same time, they do not want to be different from their group; so they behave in ways that are inconsistent with their private beliefs i.e., they follow behaviour or opinion followed by group to which they belong. This process can be interpreted as 99 defence mechanism adapted by a person to overcome his anxiety of not following his own opinion. Recent findings suggest that one may involve a tendency to alter their perceptions of the situation so that conformity appears or rather to be justified for his decision to follow group’s or others’ decision or opinion. Several studies suggest that the decision to conform may be followed by changes in perceptions of the facts that make justification available for conformity. The Need for Individuality and the Need for Control: Why, Sometimes, We Choose Not to Go Along : It becomes important to understand the underlying process or reasons for the ability of an individual to resist even powerful pressures toward conformity. Research findings point to two key factors underlying this process. First, most of us have desire to maintain our uniqueness or individuality. Even though, we have tendency to be like others still not to the extent that we lose our personal identity. Most of us possess a desire for individuation-for being distinguished from others in some respects. Second, many individuals have desire to maintain control over the events in their lives. The conforming behaviour develops a feeling of driven away by the external factors, which threatens the desire to be control life events. Therefore, they choose to resist group pressures. Most persons want to believe that they can determine what happens to them, and yielding to social pressure sometimes runs counter to this desire. Minority Influence: Does the Majority Always Rule? We have often noted that minorities do influence majority on many occassions. It will be interesting to know the process, which make them successful. Research findings suggest that they are most likely to succeed under certain conditions, which are discussed below: First, the members of such minority groups must be consistent in their opposition to majority opinions. If they show sign of yielding to the majority view, their impact is reduced. Second, the members of the minority must avoid appearing to be rigid and dogmatic. A minority that merely repeats the same position over and over again is less persuasive than one that demonstrates degree of flexibility. 100 Third, the general social context in which a minority operates is important. If a minority argues for a position that is consistent with current social trends (e.g., conservative views at a time of growing conservatism), its chances of influencing the majority are greater than if it argues for a position that is out of step with such trend. 

Symbolic Social Influence: How we are Influenced by others even when they are not there:  Other people can influence us when they are present and trying to do so is not that surprising but growing evidence suggest that others can influence us even when they are not present and not trying to change our behavior or thoughts, a process that can be described as symbolic social influence. Symbolic Social Influence can be defined as social influence resulting from the mental representations of others or of our relationships with them. It will be interesting to know how the psychological presence of others in our mental representations of others or of relationship with them influence our behavior and thought. Some of the explanations are given below: First, we have relational schemas i.e., mental representations of people with whom we have relationships, when these relational schemas are triggered, in turn, goals relevant to them may be activated. These goals, in turn, can affect our behaviour, our thoughts about ourselves, and our evaluations of others. e.g., if we think of our professor in university, the goal of respecting and following the instructions given by him/her is activated. Then we become more inclined toward giving respect to other faculty members in the department. Second, the psychological presence of others may trigger goals with which those persons are associated-goals they want us to achieve. For instance, if we have thoughts of our friend, we know that he wants to start a student’s movement in college, and our commitment to this goal may be increased and we may put efforts to attain it, especially if we feel very close to him. Therefore, it is to the extent that others are psychologically present in out thoughts, the nature of our relationships with them, goals we keep in these relationships and goals these people themselves want us to achieve can all be stimulated or triggered, and these ideas strongly affect our decisions to behave in particular ways.

References