John Ashcroft: This Is Not The Justice Department That I Knew'

Deviant behavior is socially constructed with the people in power defining what is expectable and what is deviant.

Conforming to societal norms has been shown many times throughout history one example of conformity is during the Holocaust. Hitler had such a powerful control over so many people so they all had followed his commands and did as he said because they were scared to be punished and they were scared to act out against what everyone else was doing. Hitler had such a strong influence on these people they had lost their individualism and were committing horrible acts because of the fact that they conformed to Hitler’s society. Just like Beatty these people were hiding who they were because they were scared of what would happen to them, if they had done what they thought was right instead of conforming like everyone else. People lost who they were by following the rest of society and continued carrying out these awful actions of killing innocent people even though it may not have been what they believed was truly right. These people were acting extremely different than who they actually were. Another example of how conformity is shown throughout society is the

In contemporary society, the choice to conform seems effortless compared to any other challenging actions. Drabble’s claim in 2001 The American Scholar, “Our desire to conform is greater than our respect for objective facts,” holds a great deal of truth. Within our political spectrum and societal standards Drabble’s claim distinctly emerges.

This essay's aim is to discuss the possibility of reducing prejudice and intergroup conflicts in the light of how social policies can help to achieve this goal. Since the second World War, social psychology went though major changes, and specifically effected by group influences. Before WWII psychology focused on ethnic and racial tensions, biological and cultural differences that made individuals react the way they did. After WWII the focus was on faulty, implicit generalisations that lead to racial hatred,

There are at least two definitions for conformity, but the one that most applies to sociology is “behavior that is the same as the behavior of most other people in a society, group, etc.” Groupthink can be defined as “a pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics.” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). According to Robert Merton in Social Theory and Social Structure, the bureaucratic personality is almost the complete opposite of conformity and groupthink because it is characterized by “arrogance,” being unapproachable, and by following black and white standards (as cited in Merton, n.d., para. 17).

Conformity: Compliance with standards, rules, or laws. Behavior in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards. Americans have been fighting in a tug of war with each other, are we individualistic society or are we a society where everybody is similar? I believe this has been swaying back and forth, where recently the swing has been going towards the individual side. Nowadays you see a lot of Americans fighting for what they believe in. We see that trend slowly growing in the youth. In the article Of Me I Sing: Americans Construct an Opt-Out Society, Alan Greenblatt claims that, “Americans want to go their own way. The right of individuals to question authority is one the strongest facets of American life. But the ability to

Individuals have a constant drawing to conform to the norms of society. It is easy to be swept up into society’s rules as most people associate a feeling of acceptance when they fit into society. While blending in is easy, it takes far more courage and strength to be an individual as they must break free from this mainstream comfort zone to generate their own, individual virtues. The figurative distance created between those based in society and those who are individuals uncovers a morally affecting environment of judgement and acceptance. Those caught in the middle of society’s norms find it easy to believe certain things because their views are shared and supported by those around them. Individuals, on the other hand, must be strong

These boys were divided into two different groups of eleven, and they were both unaware of the others existence. These two different groups quickly began to form their own identities and even created team names. The Rattlers and the Eagles. After the first week the two teams were finally introduced to each other and they immediately wanted to face off against the other group in different athletic events. After the first event, the Eagles lost and took out their anger by burning the Rattlers flag. When the Rattlers found about this, a fight broke out at the very next event which happened to be a baseball game. The following day, the Rattlers raided the Eagles cabin and they went back in forth in a feud with one another for the remainder of the camp. The researchers wanted to see what would happen if they took two groups with no inherent differences and simply set competitive goals between the two groups. The results the concluded can still be seen in business today. No more than fifteen minutes away from Coharie Country Club is another golf club, Timberlake. The members at Coharie don’t play at Timberlake and the members at Timberlake don’t play at Coharie. It has been this way since I was a young boy, and to this day it still makes no sense to me. We let our unconscious minds make predetermined accusations about other groups without ever giving the opposition an opportunity to state their case. Without any thought, our minds unconsciously associate inferiority with the other group and it is something that needs to end where I

This experiment showed a clear example of discrimination, stereotypes, and prejudice. What had really stuck out to me in this video was the fact that the kids all knew each other and were friends before the teacher segregated them based on the color of their eyes. Given eye color has absolutely nothing to do with intellect, the teacher was able to convince the kids that one day blue eyes were superior and then that next day brown eyes were superior. The kids had no problem holding this to be ‘true’ to them. What is prejudice about this is the kids were getting into fights and were name calling because the teacher segregated them. Before they were separated, they were all friends. After segregating them, it’s like the kids dropped everything they already knew about each other and began discriminating each other. The teacher created stereotypes by timing their group activity. When the blue eyes were superior on Tuesday, they got a time of three minutes. Then on Wednesday when they were the minority, they got a time of four. The teacher literally convinced the kids that they were dumber than the brown eyed kids and everyone began to assume that blue eyed kids weren't as smart as brown eyed

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.

In the world which all people live in there is an ongoing misconception of a key human idea. This is whether conformity is the pure ideal of all humans or nonconformity exists as a way to counteract the overflow of constant societal conformity. People out in the world can do crazy things and some people such as Tom Leppard, also know as , “The Leopard Man” push towards the idea of fighting against society in a war to gain self individuality.Even though it is possible for people to be externally a nonconformist, it is human instinct to give in to the will of the majority and no degree of nonconformity could go against it.

To add more value to the subject of discrimination, there are theories like the social conflict

Over the course of human history, social clash has occurred as a result of many different factors which commonly encompasses the identity of the involved groups. The concept of group warfare is as old as mankind itself and has been a proven staple to the existence of structured society on Earth. As identity has remained a common component to group conflict on both macro and micro levels, post-modern society has made it apparent that social harmony can truly be achieved through breaking down preconceived prejudices, and looking forward to sharing identity in the form of sacred values. Atrocities on behalf of diversity intolerance have occurred in devastating forms as recently as the Nazi infiltration of the Jewish communities during the World

The contact hypothesis is perhaps the earliest formal proposal for reducing prejudice, which was proposed by Gordon Allport in 1954 (Everett, 2013). The main belief of this theory is to encourage intergroup contact in order to reduce prejudice between groups (Barry, 2016). According to Allport, “prejudice may be reduced by equal status contact between [the groups] in the pursuit of common goals”, especially when it is empowered by institutional supports which help create common interests and humanity among members in the groups (Allport, 1945 cited in Gross, 2005). In other words, Allport believed that all three conditions—equal status, common goals, and

There are few examples of group dynamics as complete and realistic as the film "Twelve Angry Men". Recently I was required to view this film and had at first great reservations about its value as an educational tool, but soon after the opening credits rolled by and the deliberations began to take place I was caught up in the story. This film was not only entertaining, but it also serves as a great example of many of the theories and aspects of social psychology. Including too many concepts to name, the film touched on several very important theories: process loss in group decisions, groupthink, the fatal attribution error (FAE), normative social influence, and social norms.