Effects of Social Groups on Personality and Behavior
Sociology social groups
Social groups an important feature throughout life, your own social group could potentially decide how you were viewed by others and could affect personality and behavior as most humans crave the acceptance and good standing a group brings. There were moments in my life where although I didn’t completely agree with what my social was doing the influence that they exerted bested my own moral judgments. During elementary school my group of 5 or 6 boys always felt like we ran the school, with our own prestigious little group we had gathered the coolest kids to be a part of, in order to gain good standing in this group you had to be exceptionally cruel to other students, although I didn’t agree with it at first I quickly learned to throw that aside to be accepted. One case was making fun of a boy who was handicapped, I didn’t really want to do it but I was at a point where I was the leader of my group so as to not be ostracized I joined in and didn’t think about till years later where I realized how wrong I was. The power of my group led me to behave immorally but once I gained good standing I used my power to possibly cause others to behave immorally.
I remember living in what many would consider to be the ghetto earlier in my childhood; gangs littered the streets of my small neighborhood, shady drug dealers and their drugee counterparts were in abundance, and my mom never wanted me outside. Although cops frequented my neighborhood occasionally harassing one of the teens nothing serious ever truly happened until someone brutally attacked another person over a dispute about money or something similar. I was outside at the time against my mother’s wishes playing with friends when I saw a man being chased by 2 officers, all my friends followed so I went along. Although the memory is hazy now I remember the man being tackled and beaten by the two officers for a very long time. The officers beat the man because of the length of the chase and
Social groups an important feature throughout life, your own social group could potentially decide how you were viewed by others and could affect personality and behavior as most humans crave the acceptance and good standing a group brings. There were moments in my life where although I didn’t completely agree with what my social was doing the influence that they exerted bested my own moral judgments. During elementary school my group of 5 or 6 boys always felt like we ran the school, with our own prestigious little group we had gathered the coolest kids to be a part of, in order to gain good standing in this group you had to be exceptionally cruel to other students, although I didn’t agree with it at first I quickly learned to throw that aside to be accepted. One case was making fun of a boy who was handicapped, I didn’t really want to do it but I was at a point where I was the leader of my group so as to not be ostracized I joined in and didn’t think about till years later where I realized how wrong I was. The power of my group led me to behave immorally but once I gained good standing I used my power to possibly cause others to behave immorally.
I remember living in what many would consider to be the ghetto earlier in my childhood; gangs littered the streets of my small neighborhood, shady drug dealers and their drugee counterparts were in abundance, and my mom never wanted me outside. Although cops frequented my neighborhood occasionally harassing one of the teens nothing serious ever truly happened until someone brutally attacked another person over a dispute about money or something similar. I was outside at the time against my mother’s wishes playing with friends when I saw a man being chased by 2 officers, all my friends followed so I went along. Although the memory is hazy now I remember the man being tackled and beaten by the two officers for a very long time. The officers beat the man because of the length of the chase and