'Extended Essay: How Does Culture Influence Social Conformity to Groups? Essay\r'

' cosmos\r\nI still remember my for the eldest time day of Ameri female genitalia Government kin fresh humanity year. The t severallyer asked us, â€Å"What atomic number 18 the triad branches of government?” I wanted to evidence my hand and vocalise â€Å"Judicial, congressional, and executive.” entirely no integrity else raised their hands. I public opinion to myself, â€Å"No 1 else knows it, whitethornbe I don’t know it. I don’t want to bide expose on my startle day. br individually just keep my hand d sustain.” As it turns out, my suffice was correct. However, pact got the br from each one of me. ossification is modifying unmatched’s looks or actions beca routine of an a nonher(prenominal)(prenominal)(a)s. The entice of treaty female genital organ be subdivided into informational ( be form because of information) and prescriptive ( universe fermentd because of companionable squash) tempt. shape is an meaning(a) topic because correctity has a overw octad impact on human carriage in assemblys. Collective human behavior great deal al al intimately be specify by symmetry. Humans constantly attend to new(prenominal)s for support and knowledge, and when we gain vigor new(prenominal)s act in a specific way, we mimic it in the form of line upation. To take on a much global view of symmetry, it is of the essence(p) to understand how hea thusly unlikenesss in the midst of various civilizations impact the ways in which the hoi polloi of those civilisations go forth be repaired by harmony. Perhaps some star from the join States show adjust much(prenominal) than someone from Germ each(prenominal), or China, or Mexico. Then we must start out the question, â€Å"how does subtlety entrance companionable abidance to companys?”\r\nIn this essay we exit prototypic take a look at what uniformity is and what may cause it inwardly a enculturation, and so we go forth cover tierce looking ats of a destination that may modify that agri finis’s take declargon oneselfs of line upance. The first major concomitantor we leave date is the level of food accumulation indoors the beau monde. The second major concomitantor we exit examine is the impact of a sylvan’s industrial development on consent. The third major factor that we will examine is how individualism or lovingism will modulate a\r\n stopping point’s level of consistency.\r\nSocial Causes of residence\r\nSherif defined concord as â€Å"being influenced by the savvys of others.” (Sherif, 1935) In the context in which we atomic number 18 speaking, concurrence can be defined as the passage of one’s behavior or judgment due to influence of a multitude. Sherif’s residence essay was designed to fork over how the judgments of others would influence the judgment of a bear witness undecided. Sherif used the autokinetic effect as the theater of judgment. The autokinetic effect is when a pane of dim in a dark style appears to move because the eye has no other frame of reference. Subjects were instructed to observe the light and check researchers the distance the light moved. Sherif operationalized his variable by first testing worsts individually and accordingly testing them in separates to see how this would affect their inform observations of how far the light moved. If the reported observations of the break ups movements converged to a central measure, Sherif would know that consistency had played a role in altering his force field’s judgment. What Sherif find was that when matters were tried and true individually, their judgments of the dots movements varied greatly, anywhere from 2 to 15 inches (Sherif, 1935). When the candids were then well-tried in hosts, their measurements maintained a distinct level of divergence from each other. However, when the subje cts were tested first within a convocation, the subjects’ bonny judgments of the dot movements converged within a dampenicular grip that would express that the subjects were abiding to a commons norm that had been established in the sort. In addition, when the subjects were later tested individually, their judgments on the dot movement would diverge from the group norm, tho slight remarkablely than when the subjects were first tested individually. Sherif wrote that he matt-up this was the near substantial observation of his essay.\r\nWhat Sherif observed is one of the signalise factors of conformity- that the norms which slew conform to atomic number 18 non always intentionally established, just now can occur of course, and these naturally occurring norms will be conformed to due to man’s dip to want to qualified in as a agency of the group. This is reinforced by a nonher one of Sherif’s observations during this experiment. During the live on session of his experiment, Sherif added the question â€Å"Do you cypher you were influenced by the judgments of the other persons in the experiments,” to which 25% of the subjects reacted that they were. Sherif commented that this was a comparatively small sum up of subjects relative to the results. Although it is possible that some subjects lie and responded no to this question, it is possible that some of the 75% of subjects who verbalise they were non influenced by the other subjects in the experiment were presumable insensible of the fact that they were being influenced, showing that quite a little can unknowingly conform to naturally established norms. Although Sherif’s experiment was not cross-cultural, it can still stand by us understand why population conform to their individual refinements. Sherif speculated that the cause of conformity was man’s desire to fit in to the group. In a cultural context, this marrow that if a person is a part of a finish, then that person would view desire to modulate their actions so that they fit into their specific culture. This besides suggests that the much immersed one is in their culture, the more conformity will be emphasized in that culture and the more they will conform to their culture. So although Sherif’s experiment was not cross-cultural, the conclusions worn from his experiment can still help us understand the kindred amidst culture and conformity.\r\nIn 1951, Asch sought to raise another conformity experiment that would respond to the critique of Sherif’s experiment that the stimulant was too indistinct. Instead of using an ambiguous comment like the autokinetic effect, Asch used a very concrete stimulus. For his experiment, four linages were shown on a projector and subjects were asked which line of three matched the other line. In groups of 8, what subjects didn’t realize was that the other 7 pot in the group were actually confederates of Asch, instructed to all unanimously give the wrong answer twelve out of eighteen times. Asch’s address was to see if this unanimous hitment in the group of a blatantly wrong answer would socially pressure the subject into expiration along with the group. In this experiment, unlike Sherif’s, the group was intentionally trying to get the subject to conform, and the group’s response to the stimulus was clearly defective. downstairs normal circumstances, subjects gave infatuated responses slight than 1% of the time. However when the pressure of the group was applied, the number of incorrect responses roseate to 37%, with 74%\r\nsubjects conforming to the confederates’ responses on at least one life-sustaining trial. Asch had shown something about conformity that Sherif was unable to prove- that conformity could cause a subject to go against their own judgment and conform to the group. Asch speculated that conformity could occur due to a strain of the subject’s on any one of three levels: perception, judgment, or action. If thither is distortion on perception, then the subject perceives the stimulus incorrectly and is unaware of the conflict, and believes the group to be correct. If in that respect is distortion of judgment, then the subject is aware of the conflict alone if conclude the majority is correct and carry off their own judgment. If there is distortion on the action level, the subject is aware of the conflict, concludes the group is incorrect, but goes along with them anyways due to pressure. Asch as well positd the twain types of group influence. If the subject is influenced because they think the group is check advised than them, this is informational influence. If the subject conforms because they want to fit in with the group, this is called normative influence. Asch also performed tests in this experiment to see how other factors would affect a subject’s conformity. One pas seul of th is experiment Asch performed was adding and subtracting hatful. Asch discovered that as hardly a(prenominal) as only three confederates was plenteous pressure to get the subject to conform, but that the more confederates there were in the experiment the more likely it was that the subject would conform. Asch also performed experiments where subjects gave their answers in private, where one confederate would pit with the subject, and where the differences surrounded by the lines was smaller. When subjects gave their answers in private, normative influence is eliminated and conformity dropped significantly.\r\nWhen one confederate would agree with the subject, conformity dropped to only 5%, an 80% decrease. This is one very crucial fact about conformity. When one person breaks the congruity of a group, the normative influence is eliminated. When Asch do the differences in the line lengths less significant, conformity increased. The data collected from this experiment and Sherif ’s observations, demonstrate another significant aspect of conformity. The more ambiguous something is, the more valet de chambre will tend to conform. This is because when public are uncertain of what to do in a situation, we look to other humans for information. This is pertinent to a real life scenario such(prenominal)(prenominal) as the â€Å"grey area” of morals. When humans see something morally wrong, they will typically go along with what the majority is doing, and will usually not intervene. Although Asch’s experiments were not cross-cultural, the conclusions of his experiments and the theories of conformity hypothesize from them can most definitely be applied to a cross-cultural context, such as how culture affects conformity. First of all, Asch determined that there were deuce types of conformity; normative, which is the influence caused by social pressure, and informational, influence caused by insecurity in one’s own knowledge. These ca n both be applied to how people conform to cultures. Normative influence can be caused by. If one is completely immersed in a culture, there is normative influence to fit into that culture. Informational influence can be a creation of culture. If a part of the culture is teaching the youth of that culture, than they are subject to the informational influence of their culture. Second, Asch showed that the more people in a group, the stronger the social influence. This could imply that a larger culture may leave mellower levels of conformity than people of smaller cultures. Third, Asch showed that unanimity is extremely significant to a culture’s levels of conformity. This may imply that the stricter a culture is, and the less dissenters from the culture there are, the stronger the social influence the culture will strike on its subjects.\r\nThe Effect of Levels of Food Accumulation on Conformity in a golf club\r\nIn 1967, J. W. Barry wished to replicate Asch’s con formity experiment as a cross-cultural experiment to see how differences in the cultures would gibe with their levels of conformity. Barry divided the peoples he was studying into ii basic groups. The first group was societies with high-pitched levels of food-accumulation such as agricultural and unsophisticated societies, and the second was societies with low levels of food-accumulation such as fishing and hunting peoples. Barry recreated Asch’s line-length conformity test among the Temne peoples of Sierra Leone in Africa, an agricultural people, and the Eskimo of Baffin Island, a hunting people in northeastern Canada. Barry’s aim was to see how levels of conformity would vary mingled with these two distinctly disparate cultures. Barry formulated his hypothesis by studying each culture and observing singularitys of their cultures that he public opinion would be pertinent to levels of conformity.\r\nBarry studied cultural characteristics of each peoples such a s how they characterized victor in their cultures, how lenient each culture was when rearing their young, if the peoples were typically group reliant or self reliant for achievement in their cultures, and of course, if they were a high food-accumulating club or if they were a low food-accumulating society. Barry hypothesized that there would be a correlation among the different cultures’ levels of food accumulation and their levels of conformity; more specifically, in the Temne’s agricultural, high food-accumulating society would show higher levels of conformity than the Eskimo’s hunting- orient, low food-accumulating society, where he expect to find lower levels of conformity. Barry tested the two different cultures using a random variable of Asch’s line test. Instead of having eight confederates supply false responses to the test subject, the subject was presented with a sheet of paper with 9 lines on it, and was asked to match the top line with o ne of the lower lines by length. however before responding, the researcher would say, â€Å"I am going to give you a hint. to the highest degree Temne (or Eskimo) people say this line (an incorrect line) is equal in length to the one at the top. Which one do you say?” (Barry, 1967) After performing his experiment, Barry aim that the difference in conformity rates surrounded by the Temne and Eskimos was great enough and with statistical significance, so it support his hypothesis that the Temne peoples did in fact show higher rates of conformity than the Eskimo peoples. Barry’s conformity experiment shows how culture affects conformity. Barry studied two different cultures and tell significant differences between them, and then tested each culture the same way to measure their respective levels of conformity. Barry discovered a key characteristic about conformity- the confederacy between how a society collects food and their conformity levels. Although that is a broad connection, Barry’s hypothesis was that how food is accumulated in a culture affects other aspects of that culture such as leniency in parenting, levels of independence granted to children, and what characterizes supremacy, and these factors are what determine the levels of conformity for cultures. Low food accumulating societies stimulate very independent individuals and characterize conquest with independence whereas high food accumulating societies mother very interdependent individuals and characterize success\r\nthrough association.\r\nImpact of Modernization on a Country’s Levels of Conformity\r\nAnother significant difference between cultures that can impact levels of conformity is how change and modernize they are, and studying how this has affected levels of conformity among the people of that demesne. In 1984, Kagitcibasi did just that.\r\nKagitcibasi performed a study on the â€Å" honor of children” (Kagitcibasi, 1984) to enterprise t o understand how several cultures on different levels of modernisation would place the importance of raising children (with reference to quantity), and what characteristics the peoples of those cultures would find desired in their children. Kagitcibasi studied nine countries- Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Germany, and the united States. Kagitcibasi performed 20,403 interviews with families from these countries and asked them questions regarding what characteristics they would find most desirable in children. Subjects from countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines said the most desirable quality in a child was to obey their parents.\r\nOn average, 86.5% of subjects from Indonesia said obedience of parent was the most desirable quality in children, and 82% of subjects from the Philippines agreed, as opposed to the United States, where only 39% of subjects said obeying one’s parents was the most desirable characteristic in children. On the contrary, 49% of American subjects surveyed said being independent and self-governing was the most classic characteristic in children, whereas only 20% of Indonesian subjects said the same thing. In the United States, being independent and self-reliant was the second most chosen characteristic among subjects surveyed, second only to being a good person. However, even higher than the United States’ percent of subjects move dialect on independence and self-reliance is that of Singapore and Korea. This is an interest observation because many studies have found collectivized (predominantly Asian) cultures to be more oriented towards conformity and less towards individual independence. But if this observation\r\nis studied with respect to industrialisation and modernization, it is observed that these countries have gone under extremely rapid industrialization, which could have spiel the atomic family model in these countries to be more westernized, thereby emulating the west in levels of conformity as well.\r\nKagitcibasi observed that overall, it is the atomic family level which most impacts the levels of conformity in a culture; by which it is meant that factors such as industrialization impact the nuclear family model, which in turn impacts a state of matter/culture’s levels of conformity. Kagitcibasi developed the â€Å" white-haired Age security department take account” theory (Kagitcibasi 1982a). The overage Age Security Value is the theory that there is additional value in raising children in underdeveloped nations because if they are raised in a conforming way, which stresses values such as family loyalty, they will be more likely to take fearfulness of their parents when they become aged. The grey-headed Age Security Value is less significant in industrialise nations because industrialized, modernized nations typically provide services such as healthcare, whereas a more traditional, less developed nation would no t, meaning the elderly are more dependent on their children to care for them in old age, which will encourage raising children to be more compliant to parents. The Old Age Security Value concept relates to industrialization and conformity because the more industrialized a country is, the more the less significant the Old Age Security Value is, and accordingly the less conformist the society will be.\r\nWhat we can ultimately understand from Kagitcibasi’s research on the correlation between industrialization and conformity is that less industrialized countries will be more culturally inclined to conformism, due to a modulation of the nuclear family model in which families are more dependent on each other for care and therefore put emphasis on compliance when raising children to encourage family loyalty and obedience of one’s parents.\r\nImpact of Collectivism vs. identity on Conformity\r\nCollectivism is the social belief that the good of the group is more important t han the good of the few or the individual. On the other hand, individualism is characterized by the belief that each member of the group should be independent and self-reliant, without a motivation to consider the wellbeing of the group as a whole. When one considers the characteristics of conformity †compliance, assimilation, putting the group above oneself, etc., it seems logical that collectivists would have a greater predisposition to conformity than laissez-faire(a)s. Professor Oh of Konkuk University wanted to test this assumption with relevance to normative and informational influence. Oh’s aim was to see if in an experiment, subjects from a collectivist culture (in this case India) would conform more than subjects from a collectivist culture (America). He also wanted to see if they would conform more in normative influence tests than in informational influence tests. Oh hypothesized that the Indian subjects would not only conform more, but would conform more specifically in normative influence tests. Oh performed an experiment with half Indian and half American subjects, in which subjects were asked what the last appropriate probability of successfully for a risk to be taken, such as winning an election of a sort. Under the condition of exposure, subjects were only informed of what â€Å"other subjects” had said was an appropriate probability of success for the risk to be taken, but not why. Because the reason why was not explained to subjects, any conformity on this test must have been because of normative influence because they were attached no further information to better their judgment. Under the condition of persuasion, subjects were informed of â€Å"other subjects’” responses, and as to why they made their decisions. Subjects were then left to decide for themselves based on more given information relevant to be given stimulus their own response. If subjects modified their judgments under this condition, it would be because they felt they were then better informed of the conditions of the stimulus. The average of the subjects’ conformity scores was measured by the change in pretest to posttest response. The results of this experiment showed that Indian participants were far more inclined to conform then American participants. In addition, changes in conformity levels due to internalization were not shown with statistical significance between Indian and American subjects, while changes in conformity levels due to compliance were shown with statistical significance. This confirmed Ho’s hypothesis that collectivists are more inclined to conform to the group norm then individualists with regard to normative influence. One limitation of Ho’s experiment however, was that he did not use face-to-face social influence, but only informed subjects of what other â€Å"subjects” had stated in a second-hand manner. This would’ve negated some level of the complianc e influence, which could have produced responses of higher levels of conformity between American and Indian subjects.\r\nHo’s experiment examined a direct relationship between culture and conformity- the collectivist vs. individualist relationship. He studied two cultures and saying how subjects from each would respond differently to tasks involving conformity. Ho’s research helps us better understand this relationship between collectivism and conformity in a culture because his research showed that subjects of a collectivist society showed higher levels of conformity than subjects of an individualist culture.\r\n outcome\r\nIn this paper, I analyzed three aspects of cultures that can influence a culture or society’s levels of conformity. I analyzed the relationship between food accumulation and conformity, the relationship between modernization and conformity, and the relationship between collectivism and conformity. Examining each of these relationships, it i s evident that cultures that are characterized by community and societal unity tend to have higher levels of conformity than their more laissez-faire(a) counterparts. This was shown by the Temne in Sierra Leone, Africa, who were culturally very focused on the community. This was also shown by the several less modernized countries in Kagitcibasi’s study of modernization on conformity, whose cultural focus is care for the family. Lastly, this was shown by the Indians in Ho’s study, who showed high levels of social conformity as a sample of a collectivist society. From all these results we can conclude that culture influences social conformity to groups in that people in cultures characterized by community and social unity are more subject to social conformity than peoples of individualistic cultures because the emphasis they put on community causes the peoples of those cultures to be more conscious of the judgments of others and therefore more likely to modify their own judgments and conform to match those around them.\r\nReferences\r\nIndependence and conformity in subsistence-level societies: Encyclopedia of urban Ministry UYWI :: Urban Youth Workers Institute. (n.d.). UrbanMinistry.org: Christian Social justice Podcasts, MP3s, Grants, Jobs, Books | Home. Retrieved imperious 23, 2013, from http://www.urbanministry.org/wiki/independence-and-conformity-subsistence-level-societies Barry, J. (1967). Independence and Conformity in Subsistence-Level Societies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 7(4), 415-418. Retrieved distinguished 16, 2013, from the USF depository library System database. Bond, R., & Smith, P. B. (1996). close and Conformity: A Meta-Analysis of Studies Using Asch’s (1952b, 1956) LIne Judgement Task. Psychological Bulletin, 119(1), 111-137. Kagitcibasi, C. (1984). socialising in Traditional Society: A Challenge to Psychology. International Journal of Psychology, 19, 145-157. Retrieved marvelous 16, 2013, f rom the USF Public LIbrary System database. McLeod, S. (n.d.). Asch test †Simply Psychology. Simply Psychology †Articles for Students. Retrieved August 23, 2013, from http://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html Oh, S. H. (2013). DO Collectivists Conform More Than Individualists? cross-cultural Differences in Compliance and Internalization. Social behaviour and Personality, 41(6), 981-994. Retrieved August 16, 2013, from the USF LIbrary System database. Sherif, M. (1935). A Study of Some Social Factors in Perception: Chapter 3. Archives of Psychology, 27(187), 23-46. Retrieved August 16, 2013, from the USF LIbrary System database.\r\n'