Thursday, December 1, 2011

Social Influence, what else is it influencing?

With all the talk in class on Wednesday about social influence and social media I could not help but to let me mind wander about the negative effects it could have. This information immediately brought me back to middle school and how looking good/being cool was more important than grades. All I wanted to do was impress my friends (mainly girls ;) so I could fit in. Then it hit me, my friends and I were the social influence.

I spent all this time worrying about what I was wearing and how much gel I had in my hair but for what reason? Then I heard about the coercive power which brought it all together. There was a group of kids who were “cool” but if you were not “cool” you were going to hear about it from that group, bullying. The sad part was the kids who got picked on were the kids that didn’t have enough money to buy the “cool” clothes and it was obvious.

Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with them because they seemed to be alright with me but for all those who were not “cool” they were picked on. Is normative influence a main influence for bullying? Bullying is huge problem in grade schools today and young kids have been committing suicide because of it. Some groups or clichés of students within the school have an immense amount of coercive power. I think this is why so many people do by expensive or nice clothes in grade school simply to avoid the coercive power and the feeling or rejection. It seems to me that social and normative influence has more power over consumers than I thought.

1 comment:

  1. I think it's interesting how the parents can play a role in that separation between the cool kids and the ones who are not. The kids themselves may have influence but no purchasing power, the clothes bought for them and the beliefs surrounding that society in the schools helped form that "class separation"

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