People come to have different views of society primarily due to social influence, personal experiences, social roles, and the context in which they live. Social influence involves individuals adapting their opinions and behaviors through interactions with others, where factors like conformity, peer pressure, and exposure to different viewpoints play significant roles. Additionally, social roles (such as professional, family, or societal roles) shape behavior and expectations, influencing a person's perspective. Furthermore, people’s views are shaped by their social environment, cultural background, and historical context, which lead to differences in how society is perceived and understood.

Social Influence and Opinion Formation

Individuals revise their beliefs and opinions based on social interactions with others, including experts and majority groups. This process can cause opinions to converge or diverge within a community, depending on the influence dynamics like confidence and majority effect. It explains why people in the same society may hold differing viewpoints due to varying social exposures and interactions.

Role of Conformity and Social Norms

People often conform to group norms for acceptance, cooperation, and cohesion, even if it means publicly adopting opinions they may privately disagree with. This conformity helps maintain social order but also leads to different views when individuals belong to different groups with distinct norms.

Social Roles and Identity

The roles individuals occupy in society (e.g., professional roles, gender roles, family roles) carry different expectations and behaviors, shaping their views of society. For example, the Stanford prison experiment showed how assuming a specific social role strongly influences behavior and perspective.

Sociological Perspective and Personal Experience

Individual behavior and views are shaped by the groups they belong to and the historical and cultural contexts they experience. People’s subjective social realities are thus different, which sociology helps to reveal and understand by encouraging examination of society beyond one’s limited personal experience.

In summary, different views of society arise from the complex interplay of social influence, conformity, social roles, personal experiences, and cultural-historical contexts. All these factors interact to shape how individuals perceive and interpret their social world.