Conformity And Social Conformity

According to Webster Dictionary, conformity is defined as, “in compliance of rules, laws, or standards.” Mark Twain’s, “Cone-pone Opinions,” demonstrates how society reacts to new conformities; individuals eventually conform to popular ideas and inevitably abandon these ideas for something greater. Twain states, “It is our nature to conform; it is force which not many can successfully resist.” (Twain 2). The reason people conform is not for self-approval, but rather, for the approval of others.

Conformity is often described as behaving the same way as everyone else to fit in. While it often has a negative connotation, conformity is an interesting phenomenon that is present in all parts of human society and can be both good and bad. Conformity is a theme present throughout many literary works, and there have been countless studies on it and its effects on people. Some of the most interesting examples can be seen in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Lemming Condition, and the Milgram Experiment.

Conformity refers to an individual’s behavior that is performed because of group pressure, even though that pressure might not involve a direct request. Many people want to think that they are conformist enough so that they are not looked upon as strange to others and nonconformist enough to demonstrate that they are capable of thinking by themselves. For many years, psychologists have been interested in human conformity. Usually when people are in groups, they behave according to how those in the group behave. That indicates that conformity can affect a person’s behavior and make a person do things that may be against their ethics, attitudes, and morals. The study of

Many individuals is faced with the decision of conforming or choosing personal desire, and it is not an easy decision. It is hard because being shunned by others for being different is not a good feeling. Choosing to conform over personal desire, often leads to loss. On the other hand, personal desire is what sets others apart and gives them joy. In the poem, “The Jackhammer Syndrome”, Al Purdy discusses the good and bad memories he has experienced. He goes through his memories of when he had fun and made mistakes, but he reflects on what he could have done better. The author of “The Jackhammer Syndrome informs against choosing the welcoming joy of conformity over the long-term gains of personal desire. Making the decision to pursue conformity over personal desire may seem easy at first, but if the choice is to conform, the joy it gives will not last. Making the decision to pursue conformity over personal desire Conformity may seem to give joy at first, but it does not last. When Al is playing pool with his brother, he wants to win badly, but losses. However when he did not care to win, Al wins! Conforming can lead to loss but personal desire has much to gain. If the choice is to conform, personal identity may be lost. In my life, I recognize several instances in which I found several similarities between Al and myself. I have made decisions that were not always good ones such as swimming across long distances with friends.

Conformity is a concept that has been heavily researched in the field of social psychology. Conformity is defined as a change in behavior, beliefs, and attitudes due to group pressure perceived as real (encompassing the presence of others) or imagined (encompassing the pressure of social standards) (Myers, 2010, p. 192). The concept of conformity is a powerful influence on the tendency for people to arrange their thoughts, perspectives, and ideas with others, especially when in a group. This takes away from a person’s individuality because they want to feel accepted by others and therefore, a person will accomplish this basic need of approval through conforming.

Human beings are defined as ''social animals'' because in every aspects of life they live together, they form a variety of groups and improve relationships with each other. Interaction with others is a natural result of living in society. In the process of interaction, society and its rules has a social impact on each individual. If people face with any kind of social impact such as group pressure, great part of them show conformity by changing their behaviors, ideas, decisions in expected way. A person conforms if he or she chooses a course of action that a majority favors or that is socially acceptable. Some kind of conformity is natural and socially healthy but obeying all the norms, ideas, and decisions without thinking or accepting

Conformity is a form of social influence, when we conform we act and think like members of our group. Often people even alter or change their personal beliefs to match those around them. When we conform we feel pressured to fit in with others, to be a part of the majority. While we may still have contradicting beliefs towards things, we change our behaviors and actions to match what everybody else is

As readers, we see how the analysis of conflictive themes has been taking over literature scenarios. When reading between the lines of certain books we can perceive themes such as conformity and rebellion. Mostly these themes can be seen in writings from times of social upheaval. According to The Oxford Dictionary, the word conformity means “behavior in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards”, while rebellion means “the action or process of resisting authority, control, or convention.” These terms create a constant battle among societies. A certain amount of conformity needs to exist in life in order to avoid disorder. This is the reason society has laws, rules and expectations. Literature represents life, and these themes can be found at the root of many literary works. Conformity can also be considered as silence. This silence is based on the restrictions of real feelings and thoughts in some literary pieces. During the sixteenth century, the emphasis on conformity was at its height. Works of literature from this time period have often reflected a fascination and frustration with this particular characteristic. People do not want to be restricted in terms of expressing opinions and developing certain activities. When facing oppression, denial of their freedom, they rebel, and that contributes to the part of the process of change in society. Not all kinds of rebellions are rationally fundamental, but when they are, it can transform society for the

The contents of this assignment will include multiple psychological theories to explain what ways an individual’s behaviour changes when he/she is part of a group. These theories will define social influence, conformity procedures within groups and social cognition, including the self-categorisation theory. Social groups are used in everyday living to represent beliefs, to work, play and to socialise. Groups can have a negative effect on an individual. Not been part of a group due to exclusion or stereotyping can create a negative effect.

“I don’t believe we were put here with all of our differences to conform to a uniform state of mind” ~Sonya Teclat. Conformity is when people change to act the same as other people in their society. The government, media, and social groups are a big part of the society. These things encourage people to conform. One of the books that have people conforming is Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson. In Among the Hidden Jen, one of the characters is very outgoing and brave. Luke another character is very shy, once he meets Jen he conforms to be brave like her. In addition, society encourages conformity through government, media, and social groups.

Conformity is a type of social influence which involves a change in behaviour and belief of a minority to fit in with the group concerning real or imagined group pressures. This behaviour could be defined as the pressure to behave in ways that are viewed as acceptable by a particular group, brought about either by a desire to ‘fit in’ or be liked. The main factor that influences conformity are social norms. Social Norms are a pattern of expected behaviour in certain situations either implicitly or explicitly. Conformity exists in two categories, normative influence where the individual’s desire is to gain social approval and acceptance from the group to make a favourable impression. And informational social influence where a person is looking for guidance in an ambiguous situation as the individual listens to other member 's views and opinions to be guided to an answer. Conformity is distinguished in three different types; Compliance is the most superficial type of conformity. It refers to a person who conforms publicly with the views and attitudes expressed by the group but still continue to privately disagree. This temporary short term behavioural change which often results normative social influence. For example, It is a student 's first day of college, but has arrived late and missed the induction to which he doesn 't know where to go. He then sees a group of students filing off towards a corridor and

Often times in life people will feel it necessary to conform in order to fit into certain groups of people. When a person conforms it usually leads to them changing the way they behave. This

There is a fundamental human need to belong to social groups especially if people were to live and work together, it is likely that they need to agree on common beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviours in order to get along and fit-in. Thus, we learnt to conform to rules of other people, the more people see others behaving in a particular way or making particular decisions, the more likely people will feel obliged to follow the suit. This is called conformity and can be defined in different ways, Aronson, Wilson & Akert (2014) stated it is the changing of one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people. According to Deutsch and Gerard (1955), social influence should be distinguished into two types, the informational social influence and normative social influence. The occurrence of social influence has implied to many real life events, which has drawn many researchers to attention. This has lead many researchers to design distinct experiments to try and understand the cause of the conformity, whether conformity is situation dependent, and whether we are able to resist social influences.

In pyschology conformity can be descibed as an indiviual’s tendency to follow the unspoken rules or behaviours of the social group to which he/she belongs to or wants to be apart of. Many psychologists including , Jenness (1932), Sherif (1935) both experimented in psychology, investigating conformity and group pressure. However, perhaps the most famous conformity experiment was done by Solomon Asch (1951) and his line judgment experiment. (McLeod 2007)

“Social influence is the process by which the actions of an individual or group affect the behavior of others” (Feldman 495). These influences are strongly experienced by members in the group. Every group is unique and is mostly guided by a particular norm and behavior. An individual in a group passively or actively allows himself to be influenced by the group just to have a sense of belongingness. In the bid to prevent being excluded or rejected from a group, some individuals overtly adhere to the norms of the group. “Thus, people conform to meet the expectations of the group” (Feldman 495).