Conformity as Seen by Different Cultures Essay - 1657 Words

Whether we know it or not, we all tend to succumb to the norm of others. We do something or act a certain way because we want to fit in with the others around us. Whether it be from bullying, persuasion, teasing, criticism, or social norm, conforming to the way of society is a part of life. Conformity is defined as a change in behavior or belief in order to accord with others. We all strive to be liked and to fit in, sometimes conforming to others around us is the only was we see fit to do so. Other factors that effect conformity are group size, unanimity, cohesion, public response, and prior commitment (Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer Welch, 1998). Different cultures view conformity in different ways. Western individualistic cultures†¦show more content†¦Like wearing pink for breast cancer, or wearing shoes in public places (Myers, 2013). There is different types of conformity. Among those are compliance, obedience, and acceptance. Compliance is when you disagree about a certain situation or idea, but go along with it anyway. A person may internally believe that this action is wrong or worthless, but the reason they do it, is to not stand out or publicly make a scene. These people fall victim to majority rule (Myers, 2013). Instead of sticking to their beliefs, they conform to gain acceptance or praise (Myers, 2013). Obedience is the act of conforming due to a command from someone else, usually of higher authority. Milgram performed an experiment on two men at a Yale college psychology laboratory. He studied the effect of when the commands of a higher up personal clashes with ones conscious. In the experiment, One of the men was actually helping Milgram and drew the part of the learner. The learner was taught a list of words by the other participant. Shocks were supposedly delivered for wrongly repeating a word from the list (Mcleod). The participants were told that this experiment was to teach the effects of punishment on learning. Each time t he learner said a wrong answer, the shock intensity increased. As the test persisted and the shocks got worse, the leaner would scream out phrases like get me out of hereShow MoreRelatedSocial Influence Conformity Essay examples763 Words   |  4 PagesParticipants were asked how far the light was moving, when alone they would state many different answers but when groups were tested the answers of the last participants were taken as a reference for the next answer this created a group norm, this group influence was to be so powerful that when participants of the group test were to proceed as individuals those answers had become internalised and a lack of individuality was now seen amongst group. 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