Essay on Human Behaviour and Social Norms
Running head: HUMAN BEHAVIOUR AND SOCIAL NORMS
Do social norms influence human behaviour?
Human behaviour is the response to given stimuli, which are socially and environmentally affected. This response is something that can easily be influenced and shaped through many personal, situational, social, biological, mental factors. In this essay the case of social norms influencing human behaviour will be analyzed using previous studies. Social norms are part of a larger influential scale generally named as social influence. Social influence is the exercise of power that an individual or a group can use on other individuals or society in order to alter their attitudes, behaviours and lead them to a desired direction. Social influence has as an outcome three different behavioural patterns, which are conformity, compliance and obedience. All of them will be discussed, but especially conformity and compliance, which mainly include the influence of social norms on behaviour (Franzoi, 2009; Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).
Firstly, conformity in general is the action to adapt with the behaviour of the rest of the people due to perceived group pressure. Practically, this means that the way people dress, entertain themselves, protest, work, eat, go on vacations, disclose themselves and substantially anything an individual can occupy himself, is formed by group’s direction and tendencies because the majority of people, if not all of them, try to socialize and be accepted by their society in any possible way. This phenomenon is called conformity and it is an ambiguous question if independence, which indeed is a reality, exists anyway. This happens because people voluntarily direct their independence towards society’s preferences and tendencies in order to feel that they belong somewhere and they have a particular social identity (Franzoi, 2009).
The second factor of influence is the compliance and it is has to do with the public and clear
Do social norms influence human behaviour?
Human behaviour is the response to given stimuli, which are socially and environmentally affected. This response is something that can easily be influenced and shaped through many personal, situational, social, biological, mental factors. In this essay the case of social norms influencing human behaviour will be analyzed using previous studies. Social norms are part of a larger influential scale generally named as social influence. Social influence is the exercise of power that an individual or a group can use on other individuals or society in order to alter their attitudes, behaviours and lead them to a desired direction. Social influence has as an outcome three different behavioural patterns, which are conformity, compliance and obedience. All of them will be discussed, but especially conformity and compliance, which mainly include the influence of social norms on behaviour (Franzoi, 2009; Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).
Firstly, conformity in general is the action to adapt with the behaviour of the rest of the people due to perceived group pressure. Practically, this means that the way people dress, entertain themselves, protest, work, eat, go on vacations, disclose themselves and substantially anything an individual can occupy himself, is formed by group’s direction and tendencies because the majority of people, if not all of them, try to socialize and be accepted by their society in any possible way. This phenomenon is called conformity and it is an ambiguous question if independence, which indeed is a reality, exists anyway. This happens because people voluntarily direct their independence towards society’s preferences and tendencies in order to feel that they belong somewhere and they have a particular social identity (Franzoi, 2009).
The second factor of influence is the compliance and it is has to do with the public and clear
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