Social Psychology in Media - Special Academic Support

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Social influence is a social psychological concept that indicates that individuals are likely to change or adapt behavior based on the social environment which surrounds them. Social influences typically impact multiple aspects of a persons life, often placing them with a choice of desiring to conform to the predominant social group or assert distinction. Either way, the social influences can alter thought patterns, attitudes, and beliefs which, in turn, impact patterns of behavior that a person adopts. Herbert Kelman identified three major categories of social influence:

compliance (publicly agreeing, but privately disagreeing),
identification (influence by an authority or iconic figure), and
internalization (accepting belief publicly and privately) (Kelman, 1958).

Another perspective on the three primary forms of social influence are

conformity (change to gain acceptance of a group or sense of belonging);
compliance (changed behavior due to a request but partially voluntary), and
obedience (involuntary change of behavior as an order from authority).

Other breakdowns of social influence include informational (changed behavior based on presented information) and normative (change to fit in) (Rider University, n.d.).

The scene being analyzed is from the popular TV show Young Sheldon. It begins with Sheldons sister Missy riding in the car to school with her mother. She sneakily attempts to ask permission to go to a school dance calling it a school function and asking her mother to think about it before saying no. The mother catches the deception and once it is revealed that the function is a school dance, she immediately says no, justifying it as because we are Baptist.

It should be noted that the show is set in semi-rural Texas in the 1980s. When the girl asks to go promising not to dance, she once again receives a negative response suggesting that would be impossible to do. The girl responds with a comparison that she goes to church but does not pray so there is no difference. Later, being depressed, Missy talks about the topic with her older brother who also despite going to church has always gone to dances simply by not asking or by lying. They discuss religion, wishing they could have a fun one. The brother shows the girl the movie Footloose where they find the quote about David dancing and leaping before God.

The mother recognizes the line and still declines until eventually being convinced by the older brother who also confesses to lying in the past about dances, that Missy should go given that she is well-behaved and asked permission like she was supposed to (Judd, 2021).

The scenes demonstrate multiple examples of social influence that are almost competing with each other. The first prominent example is religion, where the mother does not let the daughter go to the dance, you know that too because were Baptist (Judd, 2021). Here, the mother is desiring to conform to a strong social dominant group in their town of residence, religious Baptists who see such activities as school dances as the temptation of a frivolous lifestyle and movies like Footloose being a sin of modern cinema.

Meanwhile, Missy is forced into either identification or obedience (depending on the classification of social influence types), either way, she is influenced/ordered by an authority figure into involuntary submission to these beliefs. Regardless of if she privately disagrees, her actions have to abide by authority as she is a child. However, in the end, the mother is affected by informational social influence, where the brother presents her with reasonable arguments, and weighing the alternative of alienating her daughter, the mother agrees. It can be argued that the mother demonstrates internalization to an extent, where she demonstrates privately and publicly her agreement as well as conformity to social changing forces where she recognizes that the newer generation is not as influenced by religion as her generation is.

References

Judd, M. (Director). (2021). Crappy frozen ice cream and an organ grinders monkey [Television series episode]. In Lorre, Chuck & Molaro, Steven. (Creators). Young Sheldon. CBS. Web.

Kelman, H. C. (1958). Compliance, identification, and internalization: Three processes of attitude change. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2(1), 51-60. Web.

Rider University. (n.d.). Types of social influences and their effect on behavior. Web.

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