Name : Chia Sue Yi

Student ID : 0315334

Course : Foundation in Natural and Built Environment

Assignment : Social Psychology - Journal 2

Date of submission : 18/12/13

Conformity and Group Behavior

“The scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual

behavior in social situations”. (Baron, Byrne & Suls ,1989). In my opinion, 'conformity' is

one of the most interesting topic from social psychology and basically it is a topic that

constantly changing me in order to better suite with other people. This topic is all about the

disposition to behave like others do, especially like those of a specific social group such as

one's peers. Conformity always happen in a group especially assigned roles to people that

determine what behavior and responsibilities people should take on.

In this lecture, I had learnt about the factors that influence conformity which is group

size and group unanimity. For example, Solomon Ash found that group size influenced

whether subject conformed. Which mean that, if the bigger the group, the people conformed,

up to a certain point. After group size reached a certain limit, conformity didn't increase any

further. In the other hand, for group unanimity, Solomon Ash found that subjects were much

more likely to conform when a group agreed unanimously. In my opinion, I think that

conformity play a important roles in a communication structure that determines who talks to

whom within the group.

Along this topic, I had find out the benefit within a group as group are always the

better way to solve complicated logic problem and team of student outperform individual in

academic tasks. However, I also had learnt about behavior in group, the bystander effect. This

effect shown that people are less likely to help when they are in group than when alone.

Power and Perils of Intuition

Thinking, automatic thinking, overestimating, constructing memories and

reconstructing our past attitudes. All of this component is reveal to the Power and Perils of

Intuition. From the lesson that I had learnt, intuition feeds automatic behaviours, creativity,

and spirituality. But intuition is also terrifying. Today's cognitive science aims not to destroy

intuition but to fortify it, to sharpen thinking and deepen wisdom. However, In my opinion,

'power' can identify as the most reliable guide as to whether or not our actions are really in

the long-term interests of our planet and all the life it supports. In the other hand, Perils

identify as a big part of human decision making. But the complementary truth is that intuition

often errs.

What create Power and Perils of Intuition? This is the question that inspire to

understand more to this topic. So psychological science has identified four influence on our

intuition about risk which is 'fear'. First, we fear what our ancestral history has prepared us to

fear, which includes confinement and heights. Second, we fear that we cannot control. When

stand on the stair, we fell self reliant and hence confident. Third, we fear what is immediate.

For example, earthquake may be a potent future weapon of mass destruction, but we live in

the present. Fourth, we fear threat most readily available in memory. Since, Memories is

something that not exact copies of experience that remain on deposit in memory bank.

Along this topic, I learnt that the value of Intuition is about modern cognitive science

which is revealing depth of unconscious mind of our thinking, feeling, and acting occurs

outside conscious awareness. 'Intuition is bigger than we realize.' It feed our

expertise ,creativity, love and spirituality. But again, it is wonderful. But it's also perilous.

Reference

Ars, Arte et Labore. 2013. The Powers and Perils of Intuition. [online] Available at:

http://supersededotcom.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/the-powers-and-perils-of-intuition/

[Accessed: 17 Dec 2013]

Wolfweb.unr.edu. 2013. Finite Group Behavior FGB3.0. [online] Available at:

http://wolfweb.unr.edu/homepage/keppelma/fgb.html [Accessed: 17 Dec 2013]

Mcleod, S. 2013. What is Conformity? - Simply Psychology. [online] Available at:

http://www.simplypsychology.org/conformity.html [Accessed: 17 Dec 2013]