Conformity to Social Roles

7 Key excerpts on "Conformity to Social Roles"

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  Psychology

  Selected Papers

  • Gina Rossi(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • IntechOpen

    (Publisher)

  Conformity An important aspect of school psychological services is the participation in meetings with other education professionals in an effort to identify and analyze academic, behavioral, and Psychology – Selected Papers 298 social problems of students and develop interventions for identified problems. In fact, some aspects of school psychological services must be conducted in group settings according to legal requirements (e.g., IDEIA, 2004 the current federal law that governs special education and related services) that specify required participants (e.g., parents, evaluation personnel, etc.). As a result, an understanding of social psychological phenomena on group decision making is an important component of school psychological services. Groups can have tremendous social power over individuals and, in some cases, exert pressure on the individual to go against his/her better judgment (Turner, 1995). Conformity has been well studied in numerous social psychology experiments. One of the most well- known of these studies was conducted by Solomon Asch (1952). This study involved the manipulation of subjects’ responses to the length of vertical lines. Almost 75% of the subjects conformed at least once in the experiments by giving a response that was consistent with researcher confederates but objectively untrue. Thus, the motivation to conform was more salient than the motivation to be accurate. Additional studies examined the impact of conformity on decision making processes. By conforming to the opinions of others rather than stating an individual, divergent opinion a group member may minimize stress by avoiding arguing, not appearing to be different or difficult or having to devise a reasonable argument for an unpopular position. People make judgments about those who agree with them and see those who agree as more intelligent and more likeable (Braver et al., 1977).

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  Role Theory

  Expectations, Identities, and Behaviors

  • Bruce J. Biddle(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  Chapter Eight The Person in a Social Context Conscience is, in most men, an anticipation of the opinions of others. -Sir Henry Taylor As we learned in the last chapter, some role theorists view the person as a cog in a social machine. With excessive concerns for sanctioning, authority, and shared norms, some who write in the role genre have turned away from the individual. But if we are to predict human behavior only from context and positional identity, how then can we account for individual differences? How do we explain the genius, the deviant, the dropout, the social planner? These are serious questions for the social scientist, and unless role theory dis-cusses them it is merely a means for describing static social systems. As it turns out, other role theorists have addressed these very questions, and to their efforts we now turn. At the beginning of Chapter Seven we asked two questions: Wherein lies the real environment? and Which came first, the social system or the individual? To both of these we now answer, Within the individual. Chapter Seven showed us how such concepts as role, position, and expectation could be used to describe social systems. Now, paradoxically, we will discover that these same concepts may also be used to describe the socialization, accommodation, adjustment, and leadership of individuals who live in a social world. In so doing, we shall explore one of the major promises of role theory—namely, its claim to provide an explanation of human behavior in concepts that also account for phenomenal experience. 281 282 Role Theory SOCIALIZATION AND OTHER EXPLANATIONS To summarize: The function of socialization is to transform the human raw material of society info good working members. . . . Role acquisition is probably the most important aspect of adult -Orville Brim A good place to begin is with a question.

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  Social Identifications

  A Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations and Group Processes

  • Dominic Abrams, Michael A. Hogg(Authors)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  intra group phenomenon whose analysis must reside in a systematic theoretical treatment of the nature of the social group. We shall build upon this reasoning below when describing the social identity approach to conformity.

  Although norms occupy an important position in sociological enquiry, this is not so obvious in social psychology, where the concept, when invoked, is rarely employed in a capacity other than that of common parlance. In experimental social psychology, the consideration of norms is largely restricted to the early work of Sherif (1936), Asch’s conformity research (Asch 1952), and more recent writings by Rommetveit (1969) and Moscovici (1976). Later, it should become clear that social representations (Farr and Moscovici 1984; Moscovici 1961), social stereotypes and social belief structures (Tajfel 1981b; Tajfel and Turner 1979), orthodoxy (Deconchy 1984), and ideology all have relevance to the concept of norm, as does the entire framework of the self-categorization theory of group behaviour (Hogg and Turner 1987a; Turner 1985; Turner et al. 1987; Wetherell, Turner, and Hogg 1986).

  Before proceeding it should be emphasized that conformity can broadly be distinguished from other social influence phenomena in that the behavioural content is normative: it represents a group which it differentiates from other groups and thus contains information about social rather than personal identity. Nevertheless, the very nature of norms is such that most behaviour concerns information about group membership and identity, and hence that most social influence phenomena contain an element of conformity. For example, compliance with a request to select a book to read (hardly conformity in any sense other than conformity to a generic norm for compliance with requests), may contain an element of conformity to group norms as revealed by the specific choice of book. Similarly, while voting may be compliance with a law (in some countries) that compels voting, voting choice

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  Social Psychology

  • Richard Gross, Rob McIlveen(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  8 Social influence

  •  Introduction •  Compliance •  Conformity or majority influence •  Group polarisation •  Obedience to authority •  The influence of roles •  Minority influence •  Application: group polarisation in a legal context •  Summary •  Suggestions for further reading

  8.1   Introduction

  Throughout our lives attempts are made, either directly or indirectly to influence the way we think, feel and behave. Similarly, we spend much time in social interaction attempting to influence others to think, feel or act as we do. Indeed, the continuance of any society demands a degree of conformity to social norms; society demands people comply with requests and obey authority at times. Yielding to social influence of whatever type or form is often counter to maintaining a sense of identity. An individual is often placed in a conflicting situation of needing to maintain his or her own sense of identity and independence while at the same time being required or expected to conform, obey or comply with other people’s wishes, prevailing norms, or standards. Failure to fall in with the ‘crowd’ or one’s peer group may incur painful penalties – ranging from ostracism to imprisonment if a law has been broken; while failure to achieve and maintain a sense of identity may result in low self-esteem, low self-confidence and, in more extreme cases, depression and apathy. Social influence may be either readily accepted by a person, both consciously and unconsciously, or yielded to reluctantly or resisted.

  The act of allowing oneself to be influenced by others should not necessarily be seen as negative or over-coercive. A person who conforms to something for which they had no strong beliefs may be saving themselves effort. The source of influence may not be from other people but the demand characteristics of the situation, for example, entering a church or a library elicits a particular behavioural response with no direct influence or pressure from others (Howitt et al

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  Human Behavior and Social Processes

  An Interactionist Approach

  • Arnold M. Rose(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Role theory, originally depicting a tentative and creative interaction process, has come increasingly to be employed as a refinement of conformity theory. In consequence, the theory has become relatively sterile except with respect to the consequences of role conflict and other forms of deviation from the conventional model of role behavior. Role taking, however, suggests a process whereby actors attempt to organize their interaction so that the behavior of each can be viewed as the expression of a consistent orientation which takes its meaning (or consistency) from its character as a way of coping with one or more other actors enacting similarly consistent orientations. Conformity to perceived expectations is but one special way in which an actor’s role-playing may be related to the role of relevant others. From this viewpoint, role behavior in formal organizations becomes a working compromise between the formalized role prescriptions and the more flexible operation of the role-taking process. Role conflict is the attempt to devise an orientation from which the actor can cope effectively with multiple other-roles which apparently cannot be dealt with in a “consistent” fashion.

  The conception of role relations as fully interactive rather than merely conforming harmonizes with current trends in sociology and anthropology to subordinate normative to functional processes in accounting for societal integration. Emphasis on the binding power of the mores and folkways or on the blind adherence to custom corresponds with a society populated by people playing roles principally as sets of expectations with which they must comply. On the other hand, a functional view emphasizes the interdependence of activities in accounting for cultural persistence and social stability. The interactive consequence of role relationships provides the social-psychological mechanism through which the functional principle of social stability operates.

  References

  1 .  Allport, Gordon. Becoming. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955.

  2 .  Bates, Frederick L. “Position, Role, and Status: A Reformulation of Concepts,” Social Forces

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  Visualizing Psychology

  • Siri Carpenter, Karen Huffman(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  Norms are expected behaviors that are adhered to by members of a group (see Applying Psychology ). Most often, norms are quite subtle and implicit. Have you ever asked what others are wearing to a party, or watched your neighbor to be sure you pick up the right fork? Such behavior reflects your desire to conform and the power of normative social influence. • Informational social influence Have you ever bought a specific product simply because of a friend’s recommen-dation? You conform not to gain your friend’s approval (normative social influence) but because you assume he or she has more information than you do. Given that participants in Asch’s experiment observed all the other participants give unanimous decisions on the length of the lines, they also may have conformed because they believed the others had more information. • Reference groups The third major factor in conformity is the power of reference groups —people we most admire, like, and want to resemble. Attractive actors and popular sports stars are paid millions of dollars to endorse products because advertisers know that we want to be as cool as LeBron James or as beautiful as Natalie Portman. Of course, we also have more important reference groups in our lives—parents, friends, family members, teachers, religious leaders, and so on. 410 CHAPTER 15 Social Psychology Damian Dovarganes/©AP/Wide World Photos following orders just because they were told to do so by an authority figure. Recognizing and resisting destruc-tive forms of obedience are particularly important to our society—and to social psychology. Let’s start with an ex-amination of a classic series of experiments on obedience by Stanley Milgram (1963, 1974). Imagine that you have responded to a newspaper ad that is seeking volunteers for a study on memory. At the Yale University laboratory, an experimenter explains to you and another participant that he is studying the effects of punishment on learning and memory.

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  Racial and Cultural Dynamics in Group and Organizational Life

  Crossing Boundaries

  • Mary B. McRae, Ellen L. Short(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  6

  Social Roles in Groups

  R ole, in groups, in organizations, and in institutional contexts, has been defined in a variety of ways. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, role is defined as (1) “a character assigned or assumed” (such as the role of father or mother) (2) “a socially expected behavior pattern usually determined by an individual’s status in a particular society” (such as an actor, teacher, athlete), and (3) “a function or part performed especially in a particular operation or process” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online, n.d). Social roles in groups and organizations are related to the character—leader, member, administrator—the social expectations of those who take up these roles, and the function that each serves on the part of the group or organization. In this chapter, we discuss social roles in racially and culturally mixed groups. We purport that there are added assumptions, perceptions, and attitudes ascribed to those who take up the various social roles in groups due to the social and cultural context in which the group takes place. Some awareness and understanding of the dynamic intersection of these factors are crucial in working with diverse groups and organizations. First, some definitions drawn from the group literature are provided, and then five types of social roles are outlined. Finally, social roles, as they relate to group-as-a-whole, role suction, and racial-cultural factors involved in role taking in groups, will be explored.

  Wells (1990) stated that roles are formed based on the expectations, projections, and projective identification of the group members and are both defensive and adaptive for group life. He defined role differentiation as “the vehicle by which group members manage their conflicts, ambivalence, and tasks” (p. 67). His description is related to the expectations and symbolic meaning of the role taken. The description of taking up a role provided by Gillette and McCollom (1995) is more functional in terms of what an individual symbolizes in service to the group. Roles are characterized by differentiation that helps to manage anxiety, defend against de-individualization or estrangement, and contribute to the group’s structure and process, all in service of the group’s task.

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