Conformity as Seen by Different Cultures Essay

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 and obedience are both social behaviors that are influenced by those around us and determines our behavior in social situations. When we change our attitude or behavior based on those around us, we are conforming to their behavior. When we obey what we are told, by what we perceive to be an authority figure, we are being obedient. Conformity and obedience can have positive or negative results on our lives, depending on the situation and the individuals involved.

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.

First, an individual usually internalizes compliance, but this is not necessarily the case in obedience. The latter can occur through internalization as well as through the existence of cognitive dissonance. In other words, conformity is a form of social influence that emanates from within the individual (Milgram, 2010). As it has been mentioned earlier, one does not have to be asked to do something for them to do it in the case of conformity. It is a decision they make due to the external pressures caused by group influence or the influence of another individual. Compliance is ethologically a survival tactic whereby one is forced to do certain things to fit in the group as doing the contrary will make them appear odd. This is not the case in

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

In the chapter "The Dilemma of Obedience" of the book Obedience to Authority : An Experimental View, Stanley Milgram explores the concept of obedience to authority, and why people cannot defy authority even the situation is totally conflicting with morality. He introduces his ideas by giving the definition of obedience, and mentions Nazi extermination as an instance of obedience, which contradicts with moral values. According to Milgram, obedience idiosyncratically binds humankind to systems of authority, and links the individual action to political purpose. In terms of observations, obedience accepted as an inveterate behavior inclination, and obeying a system of authority has been comprehended as

According to the Oxford dictionary Obedience is defined as a compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another's authority. In many situations authority demonstrates the ability to control man to go against their beliefs in what is morally right. Due to fear and the insecurities of man, authority may push the limits of society to a point where the individual may temporarily give up their identity. This is proven by The Stanford Prison experiment

Compliance refers to an individual’s response when given an instruction from somebody else. An individual is more likely to comply with that instruction if it comes from a person that is liked or if it fits in with own beliefs and opinions. Conformity is the process of going along with a group in order to be accepted or to fit in. Social pressure can cause an individual to change something about themselves like dress sense or what music genre they listen to just to follow the crowd. To add to that, another way why a person’s behaviour may change when part of a group is due to obedience.

“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.

To understand why we have a sense of conformity, we must first understand value. “Values are used to learn people’s culture, ideas, and what they want out of life (Henslin 49). Every culture has similar and different values. “Norms are the expectations a group develops concerning the ‘right’ way to reflects its values” (Henslin49). An example of a norm would be personal space and speaking quietly in certain places such as a library. When norms are violated people often begin to question the person’s sanity and well-being based on how extreme the norm violation was.

Obedience is a basic behavior that practically everyone has. Unfortunately, some authority is essential for community living. In a way, obedience is a form of submission as old as time itself. Society appears threatened by disobedience and hesitation. In the experiments described in “The Perils of Obedience”, ethics and hesitation get in the way of obedience.

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.

People have been changing their behavior or obeying someone else’s commands for years. This continues today in our everyday lives. Conformity and obedience seem similar but differ in several ways. Conformity is defined by psychologists as a change in behavior or belief to accord with others. Similar to this, is obedience. Obedience is defined acting in accordance with a direct order or command. Normally people conform to reap a reward or to avoid punishment. If we comply with a direct order or command it is considered obedience. Most of the time when people comply, it is to be accepted among others so they are not seen as outsiders. On the other hand, when we obey, we are obeying a command an authority figure

Stanley Milgram’s (1963), Behavioral Study of Obedience measured how far an ordinary subject will go beyond their fundamental moral character to comply with direction from