Conformity Essay

In psychology, conformity is defined as the alteration of one’s beliefs and behaviors to better match those around you. There are typically two different forms of conformity, normative and informational. Normative conformity is becoming compliant to group pressure with the want to fit in. On the other hand, Information conformity refers to when a person looks to the group for guidance when they lack knowledge in a certain area. Conformity also can range in different levels such as from how people dress to how people act in public. This force is what drives even the most simple of decisions that a person will make on a daily basis. As a result, these individuals conform to other people’s behaviors. For example, just like a public compliance, which is when a person conforms to another’s behavior even if they do not necessarily believe or agree of the person’s words or actions. In society, conformity puts pressure on citizens to either conform to the laws they are given or face legal consequences. Conformity creates something called “group norms”, which are an informal set of social rules that are often unspoken. (Group Norms) When a person violates these norms, they will often find themselves in conflict with the rest of the group, and can potentially be removed.

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

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.

According to Aronson (1985), conformity is “a change in a person’s opinion or behaviour as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or a group of people”.

Conformity is a situation of changing one’s behavior in order to match the actions of the society around the person. The social influence cause people to agree or even behave like the majority of the people in the specific group so that the group can perceive them as normal. Solomon Asch (1956) was interested to know the act of people in conformity pressure. Because of that, he created an experiment to investigate the process by asking college students in a group of eight to match the lengths of different lines. The experiment shows that 95% of the students correctly match 12 lines without pressure of group. Ash repeats the experiment by changing the situation. The students now need to hear answers of five other people who are actually confederates

According to one website ‘Conformity is a type of social influence involving a change in belief or behavior in order to fit in with a group.’. (Saul McLeod, 2016). People is very susceptible to the action or opinions of majority and imitate their action unconsciously. I think this is because people have tendency the action which the majority taken is correct. If they are an only person who takes action which is different from others, the might think ‘Am I wrong?’. After they think so, they imitate others. One famous experiment done by Asch is known as example of conformity. It shows 1/3 to 1/2 of the subjects make a judgment contrary to objective fact and in conformity with the

Conformity is going along with one’s belief or actions, in a group a person can be influenced to become harmful and destructive. There are certain times where peaceful protesters can turn completely angry and enraged, due to partial members misunderstanding’s towards their change in views. Stanley Milgram and Solomon Asch both did major experiments exploring the true definition of individuals who will conform to the pressure of a group or a perceived authority. Stanley Milgram and Solomon Asch experiment also showed us how perfectly normal human being can be pressed into very unusual behavior by authority figures or the consensus of opinion around them.

Venerated poet, Maya Angelou, once wrote, “few survive, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of… conformity.” This is especially true in the education system, where impressionable youth submit to a doctrine of doing simply what they are told, doing as others do. Nearly all schools rain down this ruling, as in many cases it is necessary to their functionality, so as to avoid a becoming a system that runs on a mild form of anarchy. However, in many cases, the conformist rule is unnecessarily strong, and grossly impeding on personal freedoms, as I’ve seen myself within our own school.

Once someone starts talking about conformity we all think to ourselves about how we are never a conformist, we never conform, and we stand out from others. Though, this is false. In fact, everyone conforms almost always

Conformity is a social influence in where we tend to change our beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes to align them with group norms. (Conformity & Obedience, n.d) In 1932, Jenness was the first psychologist to study the psychological force of conformity, and his experiment was based on group conformity and how a majority decision can influence an individual’s rational thought. (S, McLeod. 2007) The psychological force of conformity is powerful, whether it is obvious social pressure or subconscious influence. Conformity can be a good or bad influence depending on the situation, and though conformity can affect all ages, it is mostly seen in adolescence. Everybody has experienced conformity at one point in their life,

Compliance and Conformity In our society, there have always groups of individuals who will conform and comply with the view of other groups. This individual will go against their moral believed just to please others. Here we are going to talk why this is true and what social phycologist have done to understand this behavior. We will analyze the most famous experiments and see what the results were.

Crutchfield, shares that conformity can be simply defined as yielding to group pressure which can take place as in many different forms, such as bullying,persuasion, teasing, criticism, etc. Conformity is also known as majority influence or group pressure (Crutchfield, 1955).

Conformity is a kind of social influence that occurs when an individual change his or her attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to match or imitate those of other people. Psychologist have conceptually split this of idea conformity into two major categories base on the social influences that causes them. The two categories consist of informational influence and normative influence. Informational influence occurs when one conforms to others because they believe that the group has accurate information that the person conforming does not have. Normative influence occurs when one conforms to others because one wants them to like and accept them.

People are continually being influenced and moulded by the immediate world, through different forms. These forms are developed through a singular perception and attitude towards life. This makes it complicated because people naturally influence others with their own views that makes it hard to retain individualism with in society. I’ve grown up with being pressured by people, the media and my surroundings to be a “copy” of someone and or something else. However I never conformed and are continually fighting for my own individuality that creates my own identity. I’ve portrayed this subjectively throughout my three paper cut sculptures “Fighting Conformity”.

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)