Conformity, Group Influence, and the Shaping of Personal Behavior

This report delves into the psychological concept of conformity and the influence of groups on individual behavior. The paper begins by defining conformity and highlighting key factors such as group size, unanimity, and group cohesion. It then explores how these factors, along with elements like gender and culture, impact an individual's tendency to conform. The core of the report involves a critical reflection on the author's own life, providing concrete examples to illustrate how their behavior and decision-making are shaped by the presence and influence of others, including instances of deindividuation, group shift, and groupthink. The paper also examines the author's self-concept and how it is established through external and internal influences. Finally, the report discusses how the author has resisted conformity in the past and plans to do so in the future, concluding with the importance of strong personal values and critical self-assessment to navigate social pressures. The report follows APA format and includes a reference list.

Running head: CONCEPT OF CONFORMITY 1
Concept of Conformity
Name
Institution

CONCEPT OF CONFORMITY 2
CONCEPT OF CONFORMITY
Introduction
Groups have been a significant focus of several studies in organizational Behavior
literature. This is due to the recognition of the significance of groups as a related component of
analysis for the general survey of Institutions. The research on group processes began in 1930
when Newcomb, Lewin, and Sheri started working on different topics such as group decision-
making, leadership and social norms (Spears & Postmes, 2015). Conformity refers to a change in
behavior that is being caused by a group or another person; the person acted in some way due to
the influence of other people. Also, Conformity is a situation whereby an individual change
his/her behaviors to go along or to fit in with the individuals around them (Hays & Goldstein,
2015). The main factors that influenced conformity includes: the size of the group, unanimity
and high group cohesion. Other factors that are linked to compliance are gender, age, culture as
well as the importance of stimuli. The first part of this paper discusses the concept of conformity.
Then the second part is a critical reflection of my life. This paper will give a more in-depth
explanation of how individual behavior is influenced by a group or other people.
Research conducted on conformity concerning how individuals change their behavior to
resemble the practices of other people found out that women are more prone to compliance as
compared to men (Huang et al. 2015). The research found that Women are more conforming and
more persuadable than men. It further explained that the difference in conformity is because of
the different roles of sex in society. This is because women are typically taught to be agreeable
while men are trained to be always independent. Therefore, men are more likely to act
independently, hold their ground, as well as refuse to conform, while women have higher
chances of adapting to the opinion of other people to inhibit social disagreement.

CONCEPT OF CONFORMITY 3
My behaviors, as well as decision making, are influenced more often by the presence of
other people in society. There are negative and positive implications of groups influence on my
behavior. For instance, group influences are essential in the context of a team sport, political
activism as well as work setting. There are many ways in which a group influenced my behavior.
The group changed my behavior through deindividuation, group shift, and groupthink (Szolnoki
& Perc, 2015). Groupthink occurs when members of a group, faced with an essential choice,
become so dedicated on making a quick, smooth decision that they all overlook other people,
probably more fruitful options (Ellinas, Allan & Johansson, 2017). Deindividuation occurs when
an individual lets go of control and self-consciousness and do things that the group is doing,
generally with adverse outcomes or goals (Xie et al.2016). Groupshift is a situation whereby
people that are in the group make different decisions about risks from when they are not in the
group.
Self-concept is used in identifying the beliefs, thoughts that an individual has about
themselves as well as how those individuals perceive themselves (McDonald & Crandall, 2015).
My self-concept is established through external and internal means. The external facets come
from my community, family, as well as other social influences. I grew up in a rugged,
individualistic society and this made me see myself as a rough and individualistic person. My
society teaches and believes that children should respect their elders; we as the children were
more inclined to think that it was our responsibility to respect our elders. The people that are
around I often influence my feelings, behaviors, and thoughts. I always changed my actions to
align with that of the groups that are around me especially in situations where I am not sure on
how to behave. You find that most of the time when I need necessary knowledge in school, I
always consult with the group of students for direction and information.

CONCEPT OF CONFORMITY 4
And in some cases when I was at home, I do consult with my parents and elder siblings.
These groups in schools and at home enabled me to gain more knowledge (Li et al. 2018). In
some instances, I conform to group expectations to prevent looking foolish. I always change my
behavior to resemble that of the group to be correct. When am not sure of the proper response, I
often consult other people who are more knowledgeable and better informed and use their lead to
control my behaviors, thoughts and thinking (Cordonier, Nettles & Rochat, 2018). In a classroom
setting, for instance, I always agreed with the judgments of another classmate who I observe as
being extremely intelligent. More often I conformed to the groups to avoid punishments as well
as gain reward. For instances, when I was in the classroom, I tried to follow the rules and
regulation in class although I don’t agree with most of them. Consequently, most of the time, my
behaviors kept on changing for me to adapt in a particular group such as my friends.
Example: I was biking with Adam and Eric, both far more experienced and skilled
mountain bikers than me, on the unworthy road that was somewhat beyond my skill. I decided to
take part because I thought I could also do it. I suffered a terrible accident just because of the
influenced of a group.
Conformity often occurs regularly in my social worlds. Sometimes I was aware of my
behavior, but in most cases, it happens without much awareness or thought on my part (Wong et
al. 2016). On the other hand, more often I conform to social standards and norms. This is
because these social norms are used to encourage my healthy eating and other essential activities
that I was undertaking during my childhood.
Conclusion
This paper discussed how groups or other people are influencing the behavior, thoughts,
and feelings of the people. As considered, Conformity is a situation whereby an individual

CONCEPT OF CONFORMITY 5
changes his/her actions to go along or to fit in with the individuals around them. Some of how I
will resist or have resisted conformity in the future/past include: I have developed strong,
precise, as well as committed values that will control my actions. Then I will try to inspect the
motive linked to not confirming. Lastly, I will try to test myself to verify that it is the thing that I
want in life. To me, I think that conformity is very powerful because it prevents the occurrence
of social stigma to an individual.
References

CONCEPT OF CONFORMITY 6
Spears, R., & Postmes, T. (2015). Group identity, social influence, and collective action
online. The Handbook of the Psychology of Communication Technology, John Wiley &
Sons, Oxford, 23-46.
Huang, Y., Kendrick, K. M., Zheng, H., & Yu, R. (2015). Oxytocin enhances implicit social
conformity to both in-group and out-group opinions. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 60,
114-119.
Hays, N. A., & Goldstein, N. J. (2015). Power and legitimacy influence conformity. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, 60, 17-26.
McDonald, R. I., & Crandall, C. S. (2015). Social norms and social influence. Current Opinion
in Behavioral Sciences, 3, 147-151.
Xie, Y., Chen, M., Lai, H., Zhang, W., Zhao, Z., & Anwar, C. (2016). Neural basis of two kinds
of social influence: obedience and conformity. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 10, 51.
Li, Y., Gan, X., Fu, L., Tian, X., Qin, Z., & Zhou, Y. (2018, October). Conformity-Aware
Influence Maximization with User Profiles. In 2018 10th International Conference on
Wireless Communications and Signal Processing (WCSP) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Cordonier, L., Nettles, T., & Rochat, P. (2018). Strong and strategic conformity understanding
by 3‐and 5‐year‐old children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 36(3), 438-
451.
Wong, Y. J., Ho, M. H. R., Wang, S. Y., & Miller, I. S. (2017). Meta-analyses of the relationship
between conformity to masculine norms and mental health-related outcomes. Journal of
counseling psychology, 64(1), 80.
Szolnoki, A., & Perc, M. (2015). Conformity enhances network reciprocity in evolutionary social
dilemmas. Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 12(103), 20141299.

CONCEPT OF CONFORMITY 7
Ellinas, C., Allan, N., & Johansson, A. (2017). Dynamics of organizational culture: Individual
beliefs vs. social conformity. PloS one, 12(6), e0180193.