Social Conformity: Why We Go Along with the Crowd

Part I 

Ideally, in social psychology, conformity involves changing individuals' behavior in to "go along" or "fit in" certain group of people. In other words, it is a form of social influence where one agrees to act or behave with the rest members of the social group. The basic intention is to be perceived as "normal" by others. In most cases, conformity yields to group pressures in response to imagined or real social norms and physical presence of others. Referring to my real-life instance, I often engage with conformity in most of the times. For instance, when I dress up every morning, I make sure that I match my attires as one of the workmate or schoolmate who was looking "smart" with the same clothing. Also, watching some of the TV’s shows that my spouse is watching even though I do not have any interest in them. In simple terms, conformity as social norm plays a role in determining how we behave in certain situations or within a specific group.

According to Nezlek and Smith, (2017), conformity differs with compliance and obedience. The latter special roles are forms of explicit expectations. The compliance is often experienced when responding to either indirect or direct request. In a case of the complaint, there is no punishment threat for not behaving in a certain manner. On the contrary, for obedience, one has to behave in a particular manner after an order from a higher status or level. It is out of command and not request.

Part II 

In this case, I tended to use my entertainment behavior as an informal test of conformity. Therefore, my intentions were to influence my spouse to like TV comedy shows although both of us do not like them. My favorite TVs shows Action Movies but she likes Mexican Soap Operas. As the first step of influencing her watching behavior, I would make watch comedy in her absence and make fun out of the normal talks using the same vocabulary and making a sound imitation of Mr. Bean one of the favorite comedian. This continued for a while as I would do it for almost every day. My intentions were to make my spouse curious about watching this comedian. Then, I would search and play for the comedy episode with Mr. Bean saying what I had imitated. And as I expected, she came to like these comedy shows mostly in search of an action or vocabulary she can imitate to make fun in the house. The change in social behaviors in an individual is a process of changing mentality and thus, it takes time. With this knowledge, my predicted response was exactly as I expected. The basic reason is that I took a considerable time to change her mentality on comedy shows.

Part III 

As human beings grow, they often absorb behaviors as social norms. It is out of these norms that people portray certain behavior in particular social situations. Furthermore, there is an implied payoff out of obeying, complying, and conforming to humans’ social norms. Also, they increase our odds of being accepted by other groups and chances of finding a life partner. Stanley Milgram is one of the classic scholars in the studies of obedience in psychology (Nezlek and Smith, 2017) . In one of the common studies, this scholar wanted to understand the extent to which people would obey instructions involving harming other people. In his observation, unlike conformity, obedience and compliance are explicit and informal social norms. In most cases, people confirm if they have curiosity or anxiety about fitting in. This behavior is further explained in the theory of normative and informational influence.

References

Nezlek, J. B., & Smith, C. V. (2017). 4 CHAPTER Social Influence and Personality.  The Oxford Handbook of Social Influence , 53. Retrieved from: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=AvUtDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA53&dq=conformity+compliance+and+obedience&ots=4P9GbpPs_V&sig=8lsedaGl6C3N2GAWuykA1BU4UBk