Exploring Types and the Impact of Normative Social Influence

Conformity can be referred to as an act of matching with the beliefs, attitudes and behaviour of the group norm and policies in the society (Li et al. 2019). In a society, the norm can be identified as specific rules or principles that are abiding by as well as shared by a group of individuals. there are three types of conformity in the society such as compliance, identification and internalisation. Compliance is referred to as the situation in which individuals agree with the majority of people in the society but they privately disagree and thus not changes their decision, belief and values. On the other hand, identification can be depicted as the situation ion which individuals admire or agree with decision and opinion of certain group of people in the society or they joined into the social conference but not accept other's viewpoint rather holding own views, values and beliefs (Harris, 2019). Internalisation is the situation when an individual changes their own decision, and values completely and adopt group values and beliefs. Normative social influence can be defined as the social trend in which individuals change their values, thoughts and behaviour in terms of being respected and valued by their society. in case of normative social influence, people care about their society and social values in terms of developing friendship and relation with others in the groups (Hodges, 2017). Based on Asch’s experiment it can be stated that, normative social influence impact on the behaviour and thoughts of people in such way that force them to conform the wrong answers or decisions of the society in spite of knowing what the right decision is. Although the overall experiment of Asch is biased as it had selected all male students as its participants, the study had shown how normative social influence has potential impact in the decision, behaviour and thoughts of people.

Minority influence is defined as the type in which minority individuals reject as well as changes the norms of the majority group in society. during this influence, majority change their ideas and values in terms of adopting the new ideas and values if minority groups (Swaab et al. 2016). Minority groups in the society do this change by remaining consistent into their values, behaviour and beliefs. Consistency in belief, values and prini8ples pose potential impact on social groups (Alvaro and Crano, 2017). On the other hand, minority group needs to compromise and cooperate with the majority values and beliefs which convince the majority to adopt the minority values and decisions. In addition to this minority should be more flexible and liberal in terms of giving proper reason why majority will adopt their value and belief by rejecting their own. Another way in which minority can influence the majority is by showing their commitments towards their values and beliefs in terms of holding their confidence in their behaviour and decisions.

Marcus would be committed and consistent with his arguments regarding his desire for travelling, which will represent that he is quite certain about where he wants to go. In addition to this, Marcus needs to compromise and adjust with his friends by deciding such a place in which his friends can spend some time on the beach. He needs to compromise with his friends in terms of travelling to the beach in which his friend can enjoy a lot and he can ask his friend about their coming to the trip during their holidays.

Obedience can be referred to the situation or process in which individuals in society obey the rule and principles set by an authority figure (Burger, 2017). There is an apparent difference between obedience and the authority figure, in which obedience is considered as the positive influence which ensures the effective and useful social operation by obeying the norms and rules of authority. On the other hand, authority figure is depicted as the dominant figure which set the norms and principles based on the needs of society (Haslam et al. 2016.). The research conducted by Milgram on obedience and authority had focused in the fact that sometimes obedience is not associated wit eth benefits of society rather it interferes with the moral and ethical beliefs and values of society people. A pilot study had been conducted by Milgram on individual regarding Connecticut in terms of observing that of they the rules or not. This study has shown that most of the individuals in the group obey the rules of giving electric shock to others set by the authority figure in society (Gibson, 2019). This study highlights the fact that most of the people in society obey blindly the rules of authority figure this is beyond their ethical principles and moral values. Especially people who reside in the lower class generally lost their empathy, feelings and moral sense that leads them towards blind obedience.

Milgram had pointed out the situational factors such as type of setting and environment which compel individual to obey the rules of authority figure. One of the most common situational factors is the legitimate authority in which the obedient people obey the principles, rules and decisions of authority from an early age. several studies have shown that obedient learn to obey the authority figure in their school setting as well as from their young age in family life. According to Doliński et al. (2017), authority people are the respected and powerful people in the society such as priests, doctors and retenders who have authority to punish people in the society if their rules are not obeyed properly. Milgram has identified another situational factor in which obedient act as the agent of authority figure. In this situation, people are aware of their behaviour, action and interaction with society people but they consider themselves as authority agent, therefore, obeying rules of authority without feeling bad or responsible for the unethical actions they do (Perry et al. 2019). Another situational factor is the graduated commitment in which small steps can be taken by the obedient in taking the big step. Milgram’ work highlights the reasons behind people obeying the authority in spite of knowing the negative aspects associated with rules.

other important factors that are associated with obedience is self-justification, in which people who harm others by obeying rules of an authority justify their actions by blaming the victims. In this process, individuals who obey the rules, convince themselves with the realisation that victims deserve the things that are happened to them (Grzyb et al. 2018). When individual harm the victim they face cognitive dissonance, which is the result of the interaction of their moral values and their blind beliefs. In this context, the individuals reduce the conflict by justifying their action with the belief that nothing is done wrong with the victim rather the individuals perform righty action by giving punishment to the victim that they deserve. Through depicting eth cognitive dissonance, Nazis have represented why people conform and obey the rules of an authority in the society.

Social identity theory can be referred as another important reason behind why people conform. Based on the social theory, the level of conformity of individual in society is dependents on how they visualise them in the social groups (Burger, 2018). There are several categories in society such as social identification, social categorisation and social comparison. Social identification is the process in which people adapt their behaviour and thoughts with society attitudes and beliefs. Social categorisation processes in which individual consider them as the members of social groups and social comparison is the process in which individual prioritises the belief and values if their groups rather than adapting the attitudes and beliefs of society.

Authoritarian personality describes why individual sin society obeys the rules of authority figure. People having authoritarian personality usually realise the needs of string leadership strategy. They generally have dominating characters through which they establish their strong point of view with giving their logic and reasons (Marshall and Holdstock, 2015, p.14). They generally dominate their subordinates by imposing their own rules and principles on them by showing the fear of giving punishment to individual in the society if they do not follow the rules.

Mandel had criticised Milgram’s work by stating that although his work supports the holocaust, perpetrators are the ordinary people who carry out the order (Russell, 2018). Moreover, Mandel also states that the experiment don by Milgram was full, of bias as the participants who are selected for the study were male. In addition to this. Mandel stated that Milgram has focused only on the authority and obedience but ignoring the other important factors such as discrimination, racism and prejudices that are associated with social obedience.

Based on the above-mentioned discussion it can be concluded that obedience is the process through which individuals in society obey the rules set by an authority figure. The authority figure set the rules for improvement of the society. Sometimes the rules that are followed by the individuals in society are not associated with social benefits rather it brings harm to other people. individual sometimes are aware of the fact that the action they take are wrong, then also they obey the rules of authority for maintaining the blind obedience. There are also other factors which are associated with obedience such as authoritarian personality, self-justification, situational factors and social identity theory/. All these factors depict that why people in the society conform to the rules and principles to an authority figure.

Reference list:

Alvaro, E.M. and Crano, W.D., 2017. Reflections on Gabriel Mugny’s contributions to attitude-centric theory and research on minority influence. International Review of Social Psychology, 30(1).

Burger, J.M., 2017. Obedience. Oxford University Press.

Burger, J.M., 2018. Conformity and Obedience. General Psychology FA18, p.241.

Doliński, D., Grzyb, T., Folwarczny, M., Grzybała, P., Krzyszycha, K., Martynowska, K. and Trojanowski, J., 2017. Would you deliver an electric shock in 2015? Obedience in the experimental paradigm developed by Stanley Milgram in the 50 years following the original studies. Social psychological and personality science, 8(8), pp.927-933.

Gibson, S., 2017. Developing psychology’s archival sensibilities: Revisiting Milgram’s ‘obedience’experiments. Qualitative Psychology, 4(1), p.73.

Gibson, S., 2019. Obedience without orders: Expanding social psychology's conception of ‘obedience’. British Journal of Social Psychology, 58(1), pp.241-259.

Grzyb, T., Doliński, D., Trojanowski, J. and Bar-Tal, Y., 2018. Cognitive structuring and obedience toward authority. Personality and Individual Differences, 133, pp.115-120.

Harris, N., 2019. Shame, ethical identity and conformity: Lessons from research on the psychology of social influence.

Haslam, S.A., Reicher, S.D. and Birney, M.E., 2016. Questioning authority: new perspectives on Milgram's ‘obedience’research and its implications for intergroup relations. Current Opinion in Psychology, 11, pp.6-9.

Hodges, B.H., 2017. Conformity and divergence in interactions, groups, and culture.

Li, D., Du, J., Sun, M. and Han, D., 2019. How conformity psychology and benefits affect individuals’ green behaviours from the perspective of a complex network. Journal of Cleaner Production, p.119215.

Perry, G., Brannigan, A., Wanner, R.A. and Stam, H., 2019. Credibility and Incredulity in Milgram’s Obedience Experiments: A Reanalysis of an Unpublished Test. Social Psychology Quarterly, p.0190272519861952.

Russell, N., 2018. The Origins and Evolution of Milgram’s Obedience to Authority Experiments. In Understanding Willing Participants, Volume 1 (pp. 37-54). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Swaab, R.I., Phillips, K.W. and Schaerer, M., 2016. Secret conversation opportunities facilitate minority influence in virtual groups: The influence on majority power, information processing, and decision quality. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 133, pp.17-32.

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