What Is Conformity and What Its Types - Essay Example

?Conformity According to Bordens and Horowitz , conformity is a behavior change based on the influence of other people’s behavior. Changes in aperson’s behavior can happen if the influence is physically present or imagined. Conformity is also a response to peer pressure in cases like teasing and bullying. In this case, conformity is seen as an influence by large groups or majority influence. In addition, conformity is clearly seen as a tool use to show a person’s response to certain groups in order to be part of them. Bordens and Horowitz (2013) give an example of one juror by the name Frank. Frank was convinced that the man on trial was guilty just because other jurors presented the same verdict. Based on the evidence presented at the court the man on trial was innocent and at the beginning Frank had agreed based on evidence presented. Later the end of the trial, Frank changed his verdict saying that the man was guilty. This is because the other juror had presented the same verdict, therefore Frank was convinced by other jurors and thus seen as an act of conformity. The juror changed his verdict based on influence of another group. Types of conformity Conformity arises because people have different behaviors, knowledge and capacity of doing things. Because of this, people try to behave like them so they can fit into that group to gain their needs and desires. In addition, conformity is because of the need to stay in the group where one is in, in other words, they do not want to deviate and look different because he or she might be seen as a fool. McLeod (2007) present types of conformity; they are normative conformity, informational conformity and Ingratiational conformity. This article is focusing on normative and informational conformity. According to the author, normative conformity happens because a person responds to group needs to be part of group. Additionally, a person would not want to be seen by others as an outsider and be eliminated by the group members. The author explains further that in this type of conformity the person’s does not accept the group’s actions in his mind but he or she physically shows that he accepts what is going on. Kassin et al. (2011), explains that in this type of conformity, a person does not want to show the difference he has from others because of the consequences which might fall onto her, like being banished in the group. The author shows that such consequences bind the person to stand for the norms of the group because cases of rejection are hurting and a person would not want to happen to him or her. Informational conformity this type of conformity is based on the capacity of a person to work on something this forces the person to search for a group to get knowledge. This also happens when a person want certain situation to be solved. In this case the group help in solving unclear situation. In this type of conformity, the person takes on the values of the group. A person is pushed to adopt this type of conformity because of lack of knowledge showing that knowledge is the main idea in this conformity (McLeod 2007). Crisp and Turner (2010) explains that in this type of conformity both public and private life of a person change making it different from normative conformity. The fact is the person is using the group influence to attain his or her wants and as a guidance. This shows that informational conformity is the act of getting information from others. Example in situations where one is met confusing situation they look for others to solve such unclear circumstance. Describe why people conform and explain how different types of social influence may result in different types of conformity. From the study it is clearly seen that conformity happens in certain groups. From this, it is seen that groups conform so that they can decide on what they need to do. People conform in order to avoid negative behavior towards them by others. Crisp and Turner (2010) explains that a person accepts the group behavior in order to avoid rejection from the group. People do conform so that they can obtain the information lacking on their side. They do so to get more knowledge from others that they believe to have. Furthermore, conformity happens when persons believe that if he or she conforms, the biggest task he or she had to undertake will be small. This shows that there is a believe of getting short cut to complete the task (Bordens and Horowitz 2013). Majority social influence is one of the social influences leading to conformity. The type of conformity which is influenced is the informational conformity. This can be explained by one experiment conducted by a psychologist on individuals and groups of people. The psychologist conducted light experiment to determine the distance moved by light basing on what individuals and group analysis of the experiment. The results of the experiment showed that most individuals relied on the groups to present their analysis. Because each one was not clear on what to say therefore they relied on others. Another social influence resulting in conformity is the size of the group. This type of conformity can result in normative conformity. This because the person would want to fit into the group and this can be explained clearly with experiment conducted by Asch which resulted to wrong analysis given by students because of influence by other students' answers (Brown 2006). Outline and evaluate research into conformity. From the study of conformity different psychologists have used the same procedure to explain what is meant by conformity. The researchers have also shown their analysis basing on individuals and groups. The research relating to conformity is done following various steps. The researcher should identify a group of people which he or she can use to ascertain the experiment on conformity. The researcher will then give a task to different groups. The results of the task should be analyzed in each group to see if there is any influence on each other by group members. In such experiments with different types of conformities such as informational and normative conformity arises hence the researcher can evaluate the causes of conformity. References Bordens, S, K & Horowitz, A, I 2013, Social Psychology, Psychology Press, New Jersey. Brown, C, 2006, Social Psychology, Sage, London. Crisp, R, J & Turner, N, R 2010, Essential Social Psychology, Sage, London. Kassin, M, S, Fein, S & Markus, H, R 2011, Social Psychology, Cengage Learning, USA. McLeod, A, S 2007, What is Conformity? - Simply Psychology, viewed 14 November 2013, Read More