How people conform to group expectations

Social influence is the ways people adjust their behavior to meet the demands of their social environment. What leads people to conform to others, and how can you understand the pressures that shape their behavior? The lessons consider how group expectations, requests, and cultural context influence people's choices.

2 articles, 1 video, 1 book · about 33 min of reading and viewing

The reading path

1. Read
   social influence · Wikipedia · 20 min read

   Solomon Asch, a researcher at Swarthmore College, demonstrated that individuals frequently change their behavior, beliefs, or thinking to align with others or normative standards, even when the majority is clearly incorrect; the presence of even a single dissenter substantially reduces this tendency. Social influence can produce compliance: people respond favorably to explicit or implicit requests from others. This changes behavior, but not necessarily attitudes; people may comply due to obedience or social pressure while withholding their private thoughts. Culture appears to play a role in social influence by shaping willingness to conform to group standards. Stanley Milgram found that Norwegian participants conformed on 62% of critical trials, compared with 50% of French participants. He linked Norway's result to group identification and a sense of social responsibility, and France's to a tradition of dissent and critical argument, and he called the findings tentative.

2. Read
   

   How Groups Shape Individual Judgment · Greater Good Magazine · 3 min read

   In Asch's 1950s studies, participants judged line lengths as group members. When they judged a line again in the future, they generally shifted their judgment toward the group, even though they thought it was probably wrong.

3. Watch
   

   Social Influence: Crash Course Psychology #38 · YouTube · 10 min watch

   Hank discusses social influence and how it can affect our decisions to act or not act, including conformity, obedience, and groupthink. These topics show how other people and group dynamics can shape individual behavior.

4. Book
   

   Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion · Bookshop.org

   Influence by Robert B. Cialdini explains the psychology of why people say "yes" and how to apply these understandings, offering a way to understand persuasion through the reasons people agree.

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