Social Psychology Concept Overview

Introduction to the concept of social psychology

Social influence is social psychology that comprises both deliberate and indeliberate fortitudes to modify individual attitudes, beliefs, or behavior. This theory explains that some individuals are likely to adjust their actions depending on the situation they find themselves in (Gackowski, 2018). Social influence emerged from social psychology where it was unified with the early definitions of social psychology (Smith & Mackie, 2016). Social influence emerged after it was researched by detectives who attempted to comprehend how dictator, Adolf Hitler from Germany, managed to produce extreme obedience and hurtful behavior to his follower during the Second World War (Haliti, 2020). There are three areas of social influence, which include compliance, obedience, and conformity (Kosloff et al., 2017). Compliance is a situation where individuals decide to do something because they are asked to by others. Mostly, they choose to comply to gain social rewards and avoid consequences. Obedience is defined as submitting a command from someone and accepting it as an expert character. Conformity means behavior change to be more similar to others. Conformity is further categorized into three forms identification, internalization, and compliance (Azmat, 2020)

An example of a social psychology scene recently reported in the media

The scene being analyzed here was aired on TV news on 2^nd April 2021. The act happened in Iran to a girl named Romina Ashrafi, who happened to be a teenager. She ran away from home with her lover Bahama Khavari after his father presented discontentment over their marriage plans (McKeon, 2019). The father claimed that her daughter was young, and under no circumstance would the father allow Ashrafi to get married at that age. Bahamas’s persistent and toxic love toward the girl troop Ashrafi wild and the two love birds left home and veiled themselves to unrevealed locations (Cass, 2018). After five days of search by the police, the lovers were brought home to their parents. The father’s daughter felt that the daughter had embarrassed the family by eloping with a man. He decided to punish the daughter by cutting off her head using a farm tool. The father later handed himself to the police, where he was arrested. It was clear that the man was to escape punishment since under the penal code of Muslims; he fathers the girl, so he killed her to relieve himself from humiliation.

The connection between the introduction and the example reported in the media

The scene demonstrates multiple examples of social influence that are almost competing with each other. The first prominent example is where Ashrafi decides to change her actions of listening to her parents in order to get married to Bahama. She chooses to comply to gain the social reward of making his lover happy and avoid the punishment of being left by Bahama. The father validates obedience by accepting the demands of the religion and deciding to assassinate his daughter to maintain the family’s respect. The father conforms to changing his fatherly behavior and chooses to convert to a murderer to be comparable to other Muslim fathers who adhere to Islamic laws. The father shows identification with the authority by presenting himself to the police. Finally, the father demonstrates internalization by accepting the beliefs both privately and publicly. This is shown when he decides that her daughter would not get married. He resolves the issue of her daughter not getting married to Bahama with his heart and later decides to reveal it to the two lovers.

References

Azmat, A. (2020). Tort’s indifference: Conformity, compliance, and civil recourse. Journal Of Tort Law, 13(1), 1-30. Web.

Cass, P. (2018). Review: Love of Russia drove journalist’s work. Pacific Journalism Review: Te Koakoa, 24(2), 265. Web.

Gackowski, J. (2018). The most recent monograph on the Kashubian barrow s in the Bronze and Iron Ages, in other words, how some archaeologists find themselves in a post-truth world? Sprawozdania Archeologiczne, 70, 339-351. Web.

Haliti, B. (2020). Adolf Hitler and the genocide against Gypsies, Serbs and Jews during World War II. Bastina, (52), 157-168. Web.

Kosloff, S., Irish, S., Perreault, L., Anderson, G., & Nottbohm, A. (2017). Assessing relationships between conformity and meta-traits in an Asch-like paradigm. Social Influence, 12(2-3), 90-100. Web.

McKeon, W. (2019). ‘What happened to her eyes?’ Self-sacrifice in [REC]. Horror Studies, 10(2), 209-226. Web.

Smith, E., & Mackie, D. (2016). Influence from representations of others’ responses: Social priming meets social impact. Current Opinion in Psychology, 12, 22-25. Web.