” How can groups influence people in positive and negative ways.”

It is widely accepted that from an early age we are influenced by those who are closest to us and the people we have around us in everyday life, which affects our thoughts, feelings and behaviour.  This essay will explore, with the use of group studies conducted by Muzafer Sherif and Solomon Asch in the 1950s and 60s and an anthropological participant-observation study conducted by Dorinne Kondo in 1990, how groups can influence people in positive and negative ways.  Positively, by providing a sense of belonging and engendering a cohesive structure whilst enhancing self-esteem, and negatively, by feeling pressured to conform and act in certain ways which counters the way in which a person would normally behave, and how group identity can degenerate into competitiveness, which may in turn escalate into conflict and discrimination against other groups.

Firstly, Sherifs Robbers Cav…(short extract)