Normative social influence is when people conform to fit in with social norms, even if they don’t believe in them. This can affect children copying popular trends, adults in the workplace, and even small regular tasks. Social norms vary across cultures and impact society.
Normative social influence (NSI) is a type of conformity in which a person or group acts a certain way in public in hopes of fitting into the norm, even if that behavior does not extend into private life. People, as a whole, have a natural instinct to want to fit in and be accepted by others. A person may make changes in their life in an effort to be accepted by a specific group of their peers. Sometimes the person does not believe or enjoy the changes she is making, but makes them anyway due to normative social influence.
School-age children are often strongly influenced by normative social influence. If the popular kids in a school all dress in a certain brand of clothing or do their hair a certain way, other kids might copy those styles to avoid being made fun of or feeling different. Some children may prefer to wear completely different clothes, but avoid doing so because they don’t want to feel like an outcast. Popular students who wear trending styles are also influenced by NSI, because they typically choose their clothes based on the normative social influence of pop culture.
Even adults can be affected by social norms, especially in an office environment. Workers may act in certain ways to get approval from colleagues or a boss. Dress in professional-looking clothes and always be early or, at least, on time &m dash; for meetings can make some workers feel that they will be a better fit with their colleagues who are assigned special projects or singled out for promotions.
Social norms affect every person to one degree or another. Even people who like to stand out realize that they are going against the grain and know what the social norm is. There are many countries where being thin automatically makes a woman more attractive than a heavier woman in the eyes of the general public and the media. Social norms in other countries are just the opposite and the heavier woman would be considered more attractive. This is an example of how normative social influence can impact a society.
Small regular tasks can also be the result of normative social influence. Usually, if a person sees a stranger slipping, the person will automatically ask the stranger if they are okay. The person usually doesn’t have time to decide whether she cares about the stranger’s well-being. Society instills in people’s minds that the correct behavior when someone may be hurt is to offer assistance. Even a person who claps at the end of a concert that he didn’t particularly like can do so in order to better fit in with the surrounding audience and not appear rude.
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