Who am I? .... Who are you?

Have you ever wondered why you have a brain and why it has an important role to play in your life? Well, I have. In fact - I do it all the time. As weird as it may seem, I admit to trying to figure out what connects us with the rest of the world.

Have you ever wondered why social influence affects one's individual needs in terms of conformity?

I'm an inquisitive being who takes an interest in psychology (human analogy) and communication, who just seeks to understand how we know who we are and manage ourselves.

With my rather wild imagination, I hope to take you on a journey where we will try to figure out who we are and why we behave the way we do- especially on the social context.

Human behaviour can be associated with our surroundings mainly because we base our lives on what we see and believe to be true. We are influenced (whether positively or negatively) on a daily basis by the media or even by tradition through social interactions with others.

Social influence refers to ways in which people produce changes in others in their behaviour, attitudes or beliefs directly or indirectly depending on the type of influence. The social influence that we are familiar with and is most common among us is conformity. It is characterised by the change induced by general rules concerning what behaviour is appropriate or required. Conformity refers to pressures on an individual to behave in ways consistent with rules indicating how we should or ought to behave. These rules are known as social norms, rules indicating how individuals are expected to behave in specific situations.

Studies show that the reason why we conform is related to two reasons such as:

1. The ‘Normative Social Influence’ which is social influence based on the desire to be liked or accepted by other people, and
2. The ‘Informational Social Influence’ which refers to social influence based on the desire to be correct (i.e. to possess accurate perceptions of the social world).

Conformity has its disadvantages too as the pressure to go along might overwhelm one’s personal values. The need for individuation, for being distinguishable from others in some respect may be limited especially when individuals try to be like other people.

Also, the desire for personal freedom seeking social change with emphasis on individual preferences or freedom may be diminished as no individuality is encouraged.

Thus it is imperative that human beings realise that the extent to which other individuals are psychologically present in our lives can strongly affect our behaviour and lifestyles particularly when we have not discovered ourselves and our capabilities as individuals. Our minds were created to distinguish ourselves from others to stimulate the different goals we seek in life, to produce knowledge and ideas that express creativity as well as innovation.