Conformity in Psychology
It must be said that conformity in at least one way or another has affected everyone. ... Is this not conformity? Such conformity in society broaches many questions as to why individuals in society will conform to such simple acts, and whether this type of conformity can be misused for other more harmful propaganda (Myers, 203). Another question to be considered is why conformity has such a negative connotation to the word? ... Conformity usually incorporates a kind of social pressure in which individual’s intentions are in variance with those of the groups. ... Acquiescing to the groups expectations can also be another reason conformity happens which leads to the inclination to allow one’s attitudes and actions to be affected by opinions already formed by another group, which can’t be healthy. There are several types of conformity, but the main two are compliance and acceptance (204). ... Social psychologists create alternate universes in which studies are researched to better understand why conformity is a relative issue in today’s society. ... Each different method provided by social psychologists attempt to answer these questions surrounding conformity; what results are to be found is astounding (Myers, 205). The social psychologist Muzafer Sherif attempted to answer conformity as it pertains to ‘suggestibility’ offered by a certain group to an individual. ... Social psychologist Solomon Asch was also interested in better understanding conformity because of an experience he had in his childhood dealings with his uncle (209). ... What social situations “trigger conformity, others little conformity”(223)? Researchers discovered that conformity happened more often if the participants in experiments felt uneasy or incompetent, and if the group became larger thereby becoming more difficult to be idiosyncratic (223). “Conformity is also highest when response is public and made without prior commitment” (223). Unanimity, cohesion, and status are also factors that are important to conformity. ... This just makes the group stronger and more difficult to contend with as it concerns conformity. ‘Status’ in accordance with conformity deals with the status a person has in society, therefore obviously having the most impact on a group or individual the more status the person has and is elevated (226).