Letter #54. Social Norms, Moral Judgments, and Irrational Parenting
All of us, though to varying degrees, are social conformists, whether we admit it or not. We usually do what others in our society do. It’s part of our human nature. We couldn’t form and live in human societies if we weren’t conformists. To a considerable degree, conformity is a good thing.
Social psychologists commonly describe two primary reasons for conformity. One has to do with information and pragmatics. If other people cross Bridge A and avoid Bridge B, they may know something about the bridges that we don’t know. To be safe, we had better stick with Bridge A too. A great advantage of living in society is we don’t have to learn everything by trial and error. We don’t have to try crossing Bridge B and have it collapse on us in order to learn to avoid it. We just look and see that other people avoid B and that those on A are surviving, so we take A too. This kind of social influence is referred to by social psychologists as informational influence.
The other general reason for conformity is to promote group cohesion and be accepted by others in the group. We depend, for our survival and wellbeing, on membership in social groups, such as bands, tribes, nations, friendship groups, or work groups. Social groups can exist only if some degree of behavioral coordination exists among the group members. Conformity allows a group to act as a coordinated unit rather than a chaotic set of separate individuals. We tend to adopt the ideas, myths, and habits of our group because doing so generates a sense of closeness to others, promotes our acceptance by them, and enable the group to function as a unit. We all cross Bridge A because we are the Bridge A people, and proud of it! If you cross Bridge B you may look like you don’t want to be one of us, or you may look strange and therefore possibly dangerous to us. To not abide by group norms is to be non-normal, which is close kin to abnormal, which can be seen as dangerous. Social influence that works through each person’s desire to be part of a group or be approved of by the group is called normative influence.
