Conformity is a type of social influence involving a change in belief or behavior in order to fit in with a group. Conformity can also be simply defined as “yielding to group pressures.” An example of this is changing your stance on political beliefs just to fit into the crowd that surrounds you for the sole purpose of fitting in.
Social Norms are unwritten rules about how to behave. They provide us with an expected idea of how to behave in a particular social group or culture. An example of this is always being on time and following instructions simply because it is the “right” thing to do.
The Norm
My family and I went to the vietnamese restaurant Pho Ben with my family. The expected norm when going to these types of restaurants is to order in the order of drinks, appetizer, entree and then dessert. I broke this social norm by ordering in reverse order. First, I ordered desert and requested the Chè Thía which is basically …show more content…
The main idea was that I did not want to laugh while I asked the waiter for dessert first and then the rest because I wanted to act like nothing was out of the ordinary. I also asked my family who was near me to see is some people would notice if I was ordering in this strange order. Similar to my prediction no one noticed. The reason that I was able to do this was because of social facilitation. That is the ability to perform better on simple in the presence of others. The fact that I went with a group made me stick to what I intended to do and not start laughing in the middle of breaking the social norm. As the breaking of my social norm went on the waiter started to conform to the situation and started to display an informational social influence. That is the ability for people to conform to other people's behavior because they think their opinions must be