Loyalty And Conformity Paper

Conformity is when a person changes him or herself to fit into a group. In order for someone to do this, he or she usually has to give up one of their personal qualities. It is highly argued over whether this is a good or a bad thing. One such book called Stargirl, demonstrates both the negative, and positive side of conformity. In the novel, author Jerry Spinelli suggests that conformity isn’t necessarily a bad thing, many just use it to become a leader.

. .” (“College Drinking”). My good friend John was one of those students that felt he had to drink to fit in. He was pressured into drinking when he started college. John never drank alcohol till his first year in college. He was against drinking he did not feel he needed alcohol to fit in and could have fun without it. The people john hung with drank a lot and hosted a lot of parties. Overtime John said he felt the students looked down on him for not wanting to drink at the parties so he started to drink. The students told him everybody drinks and that it would not hurt him if he had a few drinks once in a while but they were wrong.

The concept of belonging is essential. To belong is to form a connection which will allow a sense of identity, without this we lose our humanity; however, conformity is in a sense a facade of belonging, as it restrains our freedom and forces us to only mimic. My studied texts show how society demands us to conform, yet conformity prevents a sense of true identity being ever created.

“The reward for conformity is that everybody likes you but yourself,” A quote by Rita Mae Brown, a renowned writer. Americans today tend to believe conformity is just a human trait we all share with no importance. Common sense seems to dictate that everybody conforms and there is no effect. Not being yourself can cause depression, drug use, and even death. There can also be positive effects for conformity; popularity is a positive effect. Conformity is both powerful and extremely common; however, every single human being conforms at a cost. The cost of conformity to the individual has both negative and positive consequences.

As one of the countries in the world that prides itself in uniqueness, even Americans find themselves caught in webs of social influence. When this happens, we change our behavior and conform to the expectations of others (O’Gorman et al., 2008). Research on conformity was first

Conformity is the tendency for an individual to change their attitude, opinion or behaviour to adhere to existing social norms. A well-known study of this concept is the Asch conformity experiment, a series of studies directed by psychologist Solomon Asch studying if and how individuals yield to or defy a majority group, and the effect of these influences (McLeod, 2008). In this investigation, the aim is to determine the effect that family size has on conformity, through a common-sense questionnaire to be completed by the participants. It is expected that participants with larger families, will be more affected by conformity.

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.

The idea of conformity is a “social influence involving a change in belief or behavior in order to fit in with a group.” (“What is Conformity?”) People see conformity as being a demonstration

Over the years, college students’ drinking habits have become a concern due to alcohol related injuries (all studies). LaBrie, Hummer, Neighbors & Larimer (2010) note that around 500,000 alcohol related injuries and 1,700 students alcohol related deaths have occurred since 2001. Several studies have shown that using injunctive and descriptive norms are most effective in changing behaviors (Thorgersen, Kallgren (1993), Noal et al and Goldstein et al (2008). Thus, researchers are looking at the influence of injunctive and descriptive norms on college drinking. Social motives and interaction between descriptive and injunctive state that when people believe their friends approve of drinking, their own drinking behaviors increase. LaBrie, Hummer, Neighbors & Larimer (2010) looked at perceived injunctive norms (approval of drinking), alcohol related incidences and intervention/prevention programs. Their results showed it is most effective to use groups the students care about (Greek Life, race, gender, etc) to change drinking behavior (LeBrier, Hummer, Neighbors & Larimer, 2010).

In the context of SLT, this pathway can be viewed as the opposite of what occurs when peers support heavy alcohol use. Specifically, peers encourage abstinence or light drinking through social reinforcement (providing an environment that approves of this style of alcohol use), modelling (peers abstain or drink lightly themselves) and cognitive processes (strong drink-refusal self-efficacy, low expectancies that alcohol is needed to be social or popular). The little research conducted on light drinkers and abstainers indicates that college students whose peers disapprove of drinking or abstain report very little personal alcohol use [7,26]. In addition, freshmen whose social networks consist mainly or entirely of abstainers are less likely to initiate alcohol use or drink heavily (five or more drinks per occasion) than students whose social networks consist mainly of drinkers [8,95]. Longitudinal research indicates that the alcohol-related attitudes and behaviours of peers are significantly correlated with personal attitudes and behaviours at both low and high levels of alcohol consumption, a relationship that is most probably the result of both selection and socialisation [13,19]. In sum, associating with light drinkers or abstainers can prevent drinking from becoming a prominent part of

G. 2011). This explains why students may drink as this may be the behaviour of the in group and in order to be associated with them an individual will engage in the same behaviour to be socially approved. Those that do not drink would be considered as the out-group not taking part in the normative behaviour. So students give in to peer pressure to fit in with the in group. This idea is also supported by Borsari, B., & Carey, K. B. 2001, who found a great deal of evidence that reveals that “interpersonal processes strongly influence college student drinking” through direct influences, modelling, and perceived

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)

Peer influence is more than pressuring another student to do something risky. The study by Talbott et al supports the claim of the strength of one’s peers to influence drinking behaviors. This study goes into more depth than Stappenbeck et al’s analysis of socialization and selection by dissecting indirect peer influences and focusing on injunctive norms, which, “were a significant predictor of drinking” (60). Injunctive norms are peers approval of a given topic, in this case underage (illegal) alcohol use. If a subject believes their peers have a positive view of drinking and that their peers are heavy drinkers then they too become heavier drinkers to be in line with those norms. In college, students are in an environment in which their peers

Conforming to not only sexual orientation but to peer pressure has the potential to also be detrimental to your identity. Peer pressure is the stress or pressure of doing something based upon the attitudes or behaviors of the group. There are several positive effects of peer pressure, yet this is only to positive actions. The need to be accepted or fitting in has the potential to be negative. The college social scene is characterized with the consumption of alcohol. The perceived normality of drinking on a college campus is apparent as “nearly half of all students routinely engage in heavy, or binge drinking” (Crawford 18). With almost half of the college population, participating seems to be the norm around college campuses around the country. Many people drink so that they can fit in with the majority, and many people have been pressured to drink. People can use this to peer pressure be inclined into drinking. However, there are people who have gone against the whole notion of the drinking lifestyle. This has been called the Straight Edge movement. This group of people have chosen not to conform to the recreational lifestyle that abstained

To expand upon the phenomenon of alcohol consumption amongst college students from the study conducted by Champion, Lewis and Myers, the current study sought to expand upon the in-group phenomenon of excessive alcohol consumption. Specifically, experimenters sought to identify the perceived positive societal gains from social drinking. Results of the study indicated that males who consumed alcohol at a similar rate of their peers were considered the most popular. Alternatively, those who consumed greater amongst of alcohol than their peers were social ostracized. This study indicates that individuals who are willing to conform to group standards in regards to alcohol consumption are more likely to be excepted than individuals below or above the norm.