Social Psychology PSY-328

1. Social influence is a change in behavior caused by real or imagined pressure. Social influence differs from persuasion because persuasion is the change in attitudes and not necessarily behavior. The three primary categories of social influence are: conformity, compliance, and obedience. Choose one category then discuss an instance you were affected by it.  Could you prevent it from happening now?  Why or why not?

2.  I have had to change my attitude many times in my life.  One example of a time that was really difficult for me to change my attitude was when I was faced with the fact that my family had to move back to a city near my hometown, that we had previously lived in, that I really disliked.  The reason we had to move back was due to a job loss in our current area.  A slow economy made it very hard for my husband to find a new job in our current area and in other more desirable areas. My husband was the main provider in our family at the time, because I was a stay at home mom taking care of very young kids. My husband finally was able to land a job after trying very hard for over 5 months. He had been unemployed the entire 5 months and it was getting really scary trying to take care of our family at that point.  The job he was able to land was back in the area we had previously lived that I disliked very much.  I literally moved back there kicking and screaming, but I knew how hard my husband had tried and that we had literally no other options.  That didn’t stop me from feeling very negative and internally having a very bad attitude.  I had to learn to focus on the things I was thankful for in order to get my attitude to change.  The factors that kept me from changing my attitude sooner were seeing all the negatives instead of the positives involved in the situation.  I found myself totally focused in on the negatives for the longest time.

After learning a big lesson from that situation, I would put that knowledge to use when trying to help others change their attitude. I would work to help them see all the positives and all the good that could come out of the situation rather than dwelling on the negatives.