Social Influence Essay: Analyzing Conformity in Personal Experiences

This essay explores the psychological concepts of social influence, conformity, and obedience through the lens of personal experiences. The student recounts instances of conforming to group norms, including a cultural shift during childhood and a situation in high school involving teacher compliance. The essay defines conformity, compliance, and obedience, providing scholarly evidence through in-text citations and a references page in APA format. The author reflects on how these experiences have shaped their understanding of group behavior and their ability to navigate social situations while maintaining personal values. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of identifying group dynamics and avoiding compromising personal morals to fit in, thereby demonstrating a critical understanding of social psychology.

Running head: SOCIAL INFLUENCE
SOCIAL INFLUENCE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1SOCIAL INFLUENCE
Human beings are social creatures and therefore have to follow the rules and norms of
society to survive. The human brain, though is more advanced than other animals who live in
social groups, possess mirror neurons which allow in matching emotions of other individuals’
emotions unconsciously (Tang, Wu & Sun, 2013). Humans anticipate and mirror each other’s
actions and thoughts when conforming to similar ideas. In order to exist in specific social groups,
they use techniques to influence others in conforming to their own set of ideas. In the following
paper, similar concepts would be discussed through personal accounts and experiences.
My process of growing up involved travelling a lot across the country because of my
parents’ job requirements. There were instances where I had trouble mixing with certain groups
of my peers and friends. On one of such instances, while I had just moved to a new city, I
acquainted myself with a group of teenagers, close to my age. This group of individuals were
considered vandals and rebels and were not seen as a good influence on the children in the
locality. This was the first instance where I experienced a cultural shift in my own age group and
the concept of conformity was instilled in me. Conformity can be defined as a type of social
influence which involves changing one’s opinion and behaviour in order to fit into a group (Kim
& Hommel, 2015). I had to change my views and style of thinking in order to match with the
group. The culture of the group was also very contrasting to what I had seen in my other
previous groups as well, being more liberal and accepting. The concept of culture says that it is
the set of ideas, behaviours, attitudes, and traditions that exist within large groups of people.
These cultural nuances in a group significantly impact conformity (Hodges, 2014).
Another experience, which was not as easy to conform to, took place in my recent past.
This had happened in high school when I and few of my peers were placed under one of the
teachers at the institution I attended. The individual would only grade those students well who

2SOCIAL INFLUENCE
would comply and obey every word of his and if not, would get a failing grade. The concept
compliance and obedience became clear to me through this incident. The concept of compliance
relates to the behaviour where one accepts influence in hopes of achieving favourable reaction
from others and obedience relates to accepting authority of another dominant personality
(Karakostas & Zizzo, 2016). I had to conform to the rules of the teacher in order to pass the
class, even though I did not agree with all of his ideals and beliefs.
In conclusion, by facing such situations in the past, it has readied me to face similar
situations in the future. In becoming acquainted to the concepts, I have learnt to identify group
behaviour and have become wary of situations where I might feel uncomfortable to comply. This
would ensure that I do not have to abandon my own values and morals in order to fit into a
specific group.

3SOCIAL INFLUENCE
References
Hodges, B. H. (2014). Rethinking conformity and imitation: Divergence, convergence, and
social understanding. Frontiers in psychology, 5, 726.
Karakostas, A., & Zizzo, D. J. (2016). Compliance and the power of authority. Journal of
Economic Behavior & Organization, 124, 67-80.
Kim, D., & Hommel, B. (2015). An event-based account of conformity. Psychological
Science, 26(4), 484-489.
Tang, J., Wu, S., & Sun, J. (2013, August). Confluence: Conformity influence in large social
networks. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM SIGKDD international conference on
Knowledge discovery and data mining (pp. 347-355). ACM.