Social Influence On Conformity

The whole span of human history is evidence to the fact that mankind has always been a highly social being. From the caveman to the modern man, we see the desire for human interaction and interpersonal exchange. And in the 21st century this need for social belonging has reached its pinnacle with the explosion of social networking sites catering to this very fundamental want of human beings. Hence, in this day and age it becomes incumbent upon us to understand the expansive range of social influence and its effect on our lives.

In the evolution of culture and social influence we see that the most significant process of socialization and interaction is that of conformity. The need to belong is a fundamental human motivation. Man’s interconnectedness

And the social influence most paired with the process of conformity is that of peer pressure. Peer pressure “refers to demands of conformity to group norms and demonstrations of commitment and loyalty to group members” (Newman, 2014). This pressure occurs when children step into their adolescence and are exposed to a variety of people exerting different kinds of influence aside from their primary social contact such as parents and friends. So in order to seek direction, help and companionship most people conform to the ideas and norms of the group necessary to gain acceptance of group members (Larkin, 1979). This influence was studied by Neuwirth and Frederick (2004) by looking into the role of peer pressure and social influence on drinking behavior. They concluded that peer pressure is the first most reason young people start drinking and experimenting with illegal substances in order to fit in and not be

Hood and Sherif, Rohrer et al (1954) focused on private conformity also known as internalization by having a naïve subject listen to the opinions of a confederate When they interviewed the naïve subject individually they found that he had merged his judgments with those of the confederate he had heard before. In this instance, there was no public compliance but an almost mindless conformity or internalization. In another study by Luchins and Luchins (1961) we find another internalized conformity wherein subjects gave incorrect responses to stimuli in the presence of confederates and when judged alone they repeated the same response (i.e. the incorrect answer). However, interestingly when one day after the experiment the researchers retested the individuals they gave the correct responses and on questioning answered that the stimuli was different at the time of incorrect