Indidvual Differences In Conformity

Throughout history, many have tried to break away from society's norms in an attempt to live life more fully, one example would be Rosa Parks when she stood up for her rights and didn't move to the back of the bus like society has shaped the laws back then. As a result of this incident, Parks ended up getting arrested and sent to court for not following the law. In contrast, some may choose to follow the rules of others thinking that’s their best decision. An example of this figure would be Boxer from the book Animal Farm, when he adopted his first motto “ I will work harder” (Orwell 18) after the first harvest following the Rebellion. Boxer never knew about the advantage Napoleon was taking on towards him,

Deindividuation results in individuals becoming less self-aware, and more inclined to go along with group decisions. Rather than taking personal responsibility for their own actions, de-individuated people see responsibility as diffused, and placed on the group as a whole. The diffusion of responsibility leads to more aggressive behavior towards outsiders.

In 1951, Solomon Asch carried out several experiments on conformity. The aim of these studies was to investigate conformity in a group environment situation. The purpose of these experiments was to see if an individual would be swayed by public pressure to go along with the incorrect answer. Asch believed that conformity reflects on relatively rational process in which people are pressured to change their behaviour. Asch designed experiments to measure the pressure of a group situation upon an individual judgment. Asch wanted to prove that conformity can really play a big role in disbelieving our own senses.

We are all social beings. We need to interact to share our views to influence each other and so we associate ourselves to a group. People try to protect their self-esteem and self-concept. But sometimes in larger groups, people do not get their due recognition for their actions. They gradually lose their identity in the group and identifies themselves by their group. This leads to the lack of responsibility and moral values. Deindividuation : A phenomenon that occurs in large-groups (crowd) situations in which individual identity is lost within the anonymity of the large group, perhaps leading to a lowering of inhibitions against negative behaviors (Bordens & Horowitz, 2017, p.311). Due to deindividuation, people lose their individual identity

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.

One way that people can become deindividuated is when they are part of a large group or a crowd. Deindividuation has been used to explain why people who are usually well-behaved can become violent during group interactions, for example, riots. The deindivduation theory complements the social learning theory as agrees that people change depending on role models.

Conformity and obedience are some of the factors that usually influence the various processes that determine the manner in which an individual behaves in a social set up. They also have an impact on how people follow and adhere to social norms (both written and unwritten) as well as fashions and their immoral actions (Milgram, 2010). Several aspects come to play when one is asked by another individual to do a particular thing. First, they will need to consider whether whatever they are being asked to do is morally right or wrong. Second, based on the circumstances, they can either obey or comply and better still, they can decline to do it. The term obedience refers to the act of an individual doing something that they have been asked to do. On the other hand, conformity regards to how others influence people. They do things that they were not requested to do. The influence is usually through the behaviors and thoughts of others. This paper will compare and contrast the factors involved in conformity and obedience.

When a person's social situation is changed, it may also change his or her self-image. His or her self-image is so affected by labeling that it becomes precisely the same as the identity imputed to him or her (Knutsson, 1977). A great example of this theory in effect can be seen in the movie the Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo, the psychologist in charge of the experiment, hypothesized that inherent traits are what cause so much violence in prison settings. This goes back to the dispositional or situational argument, inherent traits being the general disposition or characteristics that a person was born with. To his surprise, the experiment did not give him the results he was expecting. Instead, he found that each group adapted to the stereotypical behaviors that go along with the identity that they have each been given. The “prison guards” did not take long to conform to the expected characteristics associated with being a prison guard which include enforcing strict rules, and punishing the prisoners with disciplines such as push ups, jumping jacks, or menial tasks such as cleaning the toilets with their bare hands, when they do not obey these rules. The labeling theory may have also resulted in deindividuation, especially with the guards. This is the state when one becomes so immersed in the norms of the group that one are put in, one loses their sense of identity. The guards may have been so sadistic because they did not feel what they did was down to them personally, but it was a group norm (McLeod, 2017). The prisoners, however, were also quick to conform to the deviant and criminal-like behaviors associated with being a prisoner. On the second day of the experiment a rebellion arose within the prisoners. As the prison guards came to wake up the prisoners for the 10 o’clock count, they were met with the

Willa Cather's "Paul's Case," displays the conflict between conformity and individuality through the main character, Paul. On a number of occasions, Paul is forced to lie and steal to escape the conformists who wish to control him and stifle his unique imagination. However, his lying, stealing, and attempts to escape the conformists, only force Paul into isolation, depression, and feeling a sense of shame for his individuality. Throughout the story one might see Cather's constant contrast of individuality versus conformity, as well as Paul's lying and stealing. Cather seems to draw the conclusion that extreme individuals, much like Paul are simply misunderstood, and not offered the acceptance they desire

This report will compare two experiments; Asch 's conformity experiment and Milgram 's obedience experiment. The two experiments will be compared for validity and their ethics. In addition, this report will take into consideration Zimbardo 's Stanford Prison experiment and the Lucifer Effect. To analyse how obedience and conformity theories can be used as an example of why good people can turn bad. This report will also look at how obedience and conformity can be applied to the criminal justice system.

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.

There is no greater sin than absolute conformity. The moment at which you become an indiscernible unit amongst a homogenous societal mixture, you ought not be considered to have lived a life at all. To openly concede to the will of the multitudes without a constitutional basis for said concession shall make one a miserable speck of a human being; uniquely talented, yet without a shred of knowledge of or vocational use for said talents; heavily opinionated, yet with opinion locked away as in the vessel of the titaness Pandora. Each of the aforementioned units must, for the benefit of us all, remain a unique individual, lest our enemies capitalize upon a common vulnerability as if they were a lupine band descended upon a shepherdless flock.

In the field of social psychology, the debate on whether one can sustain their identity, despite anonymity, in a group remains unanswered. Questions such as, ‘Why do people suddenly become aggravated to fight in group even though they have different personality when they are alone?’ or ‘Are we more capable of doing bad things when we are left unchecked and anonymous?’ continue to puzzle psychologist up to this date. In the article titled The Role of Anonymity in Deindividuated Behaviour: A Comparison of Deindividuation Theory and the Social Identity Model of Deindividuation effects (SIDE), Jenna Chang, takes into account the two ground-breaking research in the field of social psychology, specifically, in the causes, effects, and outcome of

answers to the dynamic relationship between motives for norm conformity and the situational context in which those norms occur.

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)