Social Influence and Group Processes

Social Influence and Group Processes

Recently, the world was majorly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to deal with the pandemic, certain measures were recommended, including wearing masks in public spaces, maintaining social distancing, washing hands, using a sanitizer constantly, and getting vaccinated, among others. When the pandemic started, individuals seemed to conform to these rules and regulations. However, as the rates of infections lessened over time, some individuals failed to strictly adhere to the recommended measures, particularly wearing masks. Some failed to adhere to the rules because they got tired of them, whereas others did not believe that such measures, such as mask-wearing, actually helped. However, for most of these individuals, being in a public space and seeing most people wearing masks would cause them to conform, as it was said that doing so would benefit themselves and others.

Aronson et al. (2019) define normative social influence as the act of going along with what others do so as to be accepted and liked by them, resulting in public conformity with the behaviors and beliefs of the groups without a guaranteed private acceptance of them. Mask-wearing, even by individuals who do not believe in its importance, can be considered a form of conformity since most people would wear masks to be accepted and not rejected by others.

According to Woodcock (2021), individuals’ perceptions about acceptance and common behaviors of other people can produce conformity, pressuring one to align their behavior with that of the group. This explains why individuals are likely to wear masks in public when they see a majority of the other members of the group wearing masks. However, if only a few members have masks in a group, then the probability of not conforming to mask-wearing is also high. While in a group, wearing a mask when most other people are doing so could cause one to relax, as Aronson et al. (2019) claim that being in a group could take away the limelight from one, causing them to relax and conform.

References

Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Sommers, S. R. (2019). Social Psychology (10th ed). Pearson.

Woodcock A, Schultz, P. W. (2021) The role of conformity in mask-wearing during COVID-19. PLoS One, 16(12): e0261321. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261321.

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This Discussion focuses on social influence and group processes. As you likely know from your own experience, the presence of others impacts an individual’s behavior, an individual’s behavior often impacts another’s, and individuals’ behaviors often impact that of an entire group.

Social Influence and Group Processes

Conformity is the tendency to change one’s beliefs or behaviors to match those of others. There are many theoretical reasons suggested by social psychologists for why people conform. Obedience is believing that a legitimate authority has the right to make a request and then adhering to this request. Social psychology studies the concept of obedience to help analyze the reasons that people disobey legitimate authority, as well as why people obey perceived authority, even when the requests go against their personal beliefs. In addition, various group processes affect whether people conform or obey in a given situation.
To prepare:

Review Chapters 8 and Chapter 9 of your course text, Social Psychology, focusing on the factors that are associated with social influence on behavior.
Think about examples in the news in which people did or did not demonstrate conformity or obedience.

Post a brief description of a contemporary example from the news in which people did or did not demonstrate conformity or obedience. Use a theory discussed in Chapter 8 to explain how or why the behavior illustrates conformity or obedience. Use information from Chapter 9 to explain how being in a group might influence behaviors in your example. That is, in your example, how might group processes, characteristics, or functions explain behavior?

Notes:

Identify your example in the subject line of your post.
Please do NOT select the Holocaust or Milgram’s studies as your example.
Support the responses within your Discussion post and in your colleague’s reply with evidence from the assigned Learning Resources.

Resources:
Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Sommers, S. R. (2019). Social psychology (10th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.
Chapter 8, “Conformity and Obedience: Influencing Behavior”
Chapter 9, “Group Processes: Influence in Social Groups”