Immigrant children in the UK tend to prefer the norms of their peers in the new culture compared to parental norms.
Which one of the following could explain this?
E. An immigrant child often tends to conform to the norms of the peer group in his/her host country. Acculturation is the process of behavioural and attitudinal changes as a result of exposure to the practices of a different dominant group, usually seen in people who have immigrated. Children of immigrants born in the host country may achieve a high level of acculturation. The level of acculturation may differ in children born in the host country and those born elsewhere but later migrated to a host country. The degree and nature of the acculturation process is affected by age at immigration, number of years in the host country, language proficiency, and participation in the host culture’s social activities, which is likely to be higher in school children, who are in constant contact with their peers, compared to adults.
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In spite of making a resolution to stop drinking, you place an order for a pint of lager when you see your friends place their order for drinks.
Which of the following could explain the above phenomenon?
A. Conformity occurs when people yield to real or imagined social pressure. If one listens to rock music in order to avoid being ridiculed by one’s friends and not because of one’s passion for the music then this exemplifies conformity. The famous Asch’s studies in the 1950s provided most experimental background for studying conformity. Asch found that conformity was dependent on group size and group unanimity. People are more likely to conform when they are in ambiguous situations or when they have reasons to doubt their own judgement. Conformity is different from obedience. Obedience follows orders, comes from an authoritative figure, and the subject who obeys usually has no or reduced responsibility compared to the one who makes active decisions.
In a famous experiment conducted by Milgram in the 1960s, a ‘teacher’ was instructed by an ‘experimenter’ to deliver shocks of high voltage to the ‘learner’ every time he made a mistake.
Which of these factors influenced the decision by the ‘teacher’ to obey the ‘experimenter’?
E. Obedience is a form of compliance that occurs when people follow direct commands, usually from someone in a position of authority. Diffusion of personal responsibility, legitimacy of the authority asking one to obey, strong persuasion techniques employed by the authority, and ingrained habit of obeying our parents and teachers as children influence our decision to obey authorities. Social groups depend on a reasonable amount of obedience to function smoothly. In Stanley Milgram’s experiment, the ‘learners’ were never really shocked. In fact the ‘teachers’ were the real experimental subjects, who believed that a shock was being administered. The “teachers” were asked to deliver the shock by an authoritative ‘experimenter’. Milgram’s experiments provided some explanations for certain aspects of human behaviour during atrocities such as the Second World War genocides.
There are five female PhD students living in a hostel for thirty at the university. Considering the girls to be the minority group, when will the group become influential in the hostel?
A. The minority in a social community may feel marginalized when their rights and needs are ignored. Members of the majority may be persuaded or influenced to change their attitude towards the minority by various means in order to reduce conflict between the minority and the majority. In order to achieve this, the minority should present the required message consistently across all the members and through various time intervals. The minority should appear to be acting on principle and making personal sacrifice to become influential within a social group. Age composition or educational status of the minority does not have much effect on the overall influence posed by the minority in a group.
Tony was considered to be a silent, shy and well behaved boy by his family and friends. At a rock concert he attended on his own, Tony was thrown out because of disorderly behaviour, which they considered to be out of character.
His behaviour can be explained by the theory that when we are in a group which guarantees anonymity, we tend to:
D. Deindividuation is a psychological state in which an individual’s identity is lost among a collective mass of people and the markers of one’s individual personality are conspicuously absent. Anonymity leads to deindividuation and we tend to lose our inhibitions. Deindividuation prevents people from following the prosocial norms of society because they are unidentifiable and therefore feel less pressurized to follow the societal norms. Generally, deindividuation increases aggression unless a group adheres to prescribed codes of practice.
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