I recently completed an assignment for a class that involved group (three or more people, my group had 5) work. There was one question that I was unsure of. I had had decided on an answer but it came to my attention that everyone else in the group had chose a different answer. Because I had been unsure from the beginning, and the group said they were pretty positive about their choice, I decided to change my answer to what they thought. Well, in the long run, my original answer ended up being the correct choice. Because I thought that my fellow group members had the right "information" to answer the question, I committed the act of informational social influencing. I believed that my group had a more correct explanation and answer than I did for myself.
In my psychology research methods class, we have a group project that involves writing a paper. The professor stated that after we handed in our papers, she was going to ask each individual member a few questions about the project. She wanted to make sure that everyone participated equally in the project and no one "social loafed"or relied on the other members of the group and still get credit.
On the other hand, this past week when I was walking back from class, I decided to test a social norm. Usually when you walk, you only walk at the same pace as others next to you if you know them. Well I decided to walk next to a girl who I did not know, for the length of the block. She kept trying to slow down or speed up but I would do whatever she did. I could sense that she was getting a little uncomfortable so I decided to ease off a bit. The behavior that I was practicing was not acceptable for our culture. I was violating social norms. Another example, but not as extreme, is when I eat at a Japanese restaurant. I am not good at eating with chopsticks AT ALL. It would take me all day to finish my meal. Well, this involves me asking for a fork and knife to eat my sushi. They do not have them as part of the place setting because it is not part of their culture to eat with the same utensils as we do. Usually, the waiters and waitresses don't give me a hard time but they do see it as being a bit weird. Sometimes I do feel uncomfortable because I feel like I am violating their norm. In the end, they must experience people asking for utensils quite often, but I still feel a bit weird asking for them.
