Group conformity, Opinion leaders and Peer Pressure

Group Conformity

What is Group Conformity?

  
"Conformity reflects a behavior that is a response to a perceived group pressure". [/www.psychologyandsociety.com, 2011]

Examples of Group Conformity

A work place become available, the workforce advertise the job they are carrying out interviews, One member is liked by the rest of the interviews by the other member has an objection against this person being hired, but as they are all for the idea he/she holds back the opinion in which they have and this new member once hired become very unreliable and later gets fired.  

Opinion Leader

An opinion leader is a person who has different ideas and behaviors to other in the group. The leader tends to have very strong views on a subject and is not affraid of to voice their opinions on the subject at hand. The opinion leaders will have an impact on the opinions the other members in the team will voice as they may be afraid to say what they really feel.

Peer Pressure

Peer pressure is when "friends" persuade you to doing something that you do not want to do. But maybe you want to do it, and you just don't have the courage to do it and your friends talk you into it. Peer Pressure can be broken down into two areas; good peer pressure and bad peer pressure. 

Friends have a tendency to think that they know what is best for you, Well, if friends are going to tell you what to do, what can you do about it? The most basic thing that you can do is to say "No, I don't wish to do that!" or if you want to do it, say "Yes, give me a try!"Weak people are more likely to be pushed into doing things in which they wouldn't normally do. Children within Secondary school are more likely to be pushed into doing things in which they wouldn't even thought about in primary school. I remember when i first started Secondary School there were pupils there which i grew up with in primary school that were being pressured into doing things such as Smoking because of other kids smoking and they believed that it was "cool" to smoke.