Social Psychology

Social Psychology Paper

Robin Cohran

4/6/13

PSY/201

S.Jones

Sarah is a 15 year old, white female. She recently started to experience some common situations for people, especially in her age group. One specific situation, was her involvement in a party that had taken place. Some of her new friends had invited her to this party and she was excited about it, like most teenage girls would be. Especially, when her new friends told her how great it would be. Sarah was feeling in good spirits, so when they invited her to go to the party, she felt it was something she wanted to do.

Sarah knew that she would be out past her curfew, and felt unsure, because she has always followed the rules. The fact that Sarah chose to stay out with her friends and continue to have fun, caused her to intentionally break the rules. Throughout, her experience she had conflicting ideas, which caused her discomfort about her actions. The discomfort she experienced from holding competing ideas at the same time, is called cognitive dissonance. (Carter, 2013)She knew she was doing wrong by not going home by her curfew, but she was enjoying herself was an example of the ideas that caused her conflicting feelings.Another set of competing ideas were that she had never broken rules before, however, she had never been to a pary before either.She also had a feeling of cognitive dissonance because she got a chance to meet Jack, but she also had to experience seeing a fight break out.

Even though Sarah, had always been one to follow the rules, and always do what ever her parents had told her to do, she still chose to stay out past her curfew. She chose to go to the party,because her friends had told her she would be missing out if she did not go. Sarah wanted to fit in with her friends,because she thought they were popular, and she wanted to be accepted. By changing her ways to fit in, she was doing something called conformity. (Carter, 2013) Because of her need to belong, she had felt...