Social Psych Project: Conformity In America
Jordan Stauffer
Social Psych Project
April 26, 2012
Conformity
Peter Ustinov once said, “In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.” This is unbelievably true as much as we try not to admit it. Society has made it where we really don’t have a choice when it comes to certain things if we want to be “normal” and liked. Although we might say we would act differently than everyone else in a hypothetical situation, when it comes down to it, we would more than likely just follow along with the behavior of everyone else. This is just whom we are as individuals- how we are wired. We don’t want to risk standing out and being ridiculed or singled out. Sure, we want to be unique and remembered, …show more content…
The one instance in which we didn’t get a response was when two upperclassmen guys followed behind us and said they didn’t care if they got in trouble or not- they were not going to take off their shoes to go in the library! I had to give them credit for not going along with us. Everyone that did take off their shoes said that they were really confused and knew that this might be some sort of joke but they still did it anyways just because two or three people did it with no shame first. Call it peer pressure or whatever you want, but the power of conformity certainly proved itself powerful at our college campus, which is exactly what I …show more content…
Albans. We did this experiment on Wednesday evening when we had people coming in for small groups. My dad is the senior minister so I made sure he was in on it. I wouldn’t let him participate though because I knew his high authority would definitely influence people whether they believed it or not. So instead, we all waited in our cars in the parking lot for people to start coming in. I wanted to see if me being the preacher’s daughter would have any influence on whether or not people followed my behavior. Well, they did. In fact my first “victims” happened to be three older women that have known me basically my whole life and when they saw me take off my shoes they went ahead and did too! I almost stopped them because I felt bad but I waited until they were inside and could sit down to put them back on. I was afraid they would be upset but they actually thought it was pretty funny (thankfully). I did it again by myself and a whole family with two small children all took off their shoes as well. I didn’t even know these people all that well. The next time we waited until a bunch of people were coming in at the same time and I stayed in my car and watched as three of my friends went before them and took off their shoes. This time, it took them a little while longer to join in but after discussing it with each other, they eventually all did. There was not one person that didn’t take off their shoes. I
Social Psych Project
April 26, 2012
Conformity
Peter Ustinov once said, “In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.” This is unbelievably true as much as we try not to admit it. Society has made it where we really don’t have a choice when it comes to certain things if we want to be “normal” and liked. Although we might say we would act differently than everyone else in a hypothetical situation, when it comes down to it, we would more than likely just follow along with the behavior of everyone else. This is just whom we are as individuals- how we are wired. We don’t want to risk standing out and being ridiculed or singled out. Sure, we want to be unique and remembered, …show more content…
The one instance in which we didn’t get a response was when two upperclassmen guys followed behind us and said they didn’t care if they got in trouble or not- they were not going to take off their shoes to go in the library! I had to give them credit for not going along with us. Everyone that did take off their shoes said that they were really confused and knew that this might be some sort of joke but they still did it anyways just because two or three people did it with no shame first. Call it peer pressure or whatever you want, but the power of conformity certainly proved itself powerful at our college campus, which is exactly what I …show more content…
Albans. We did this experiment on Wednesday evening when we had people coming in for small groups. My dad is the senior minister so I made sure he was in on it. I wouldn’t let him participate though because I knew his high authority would definitely influence people whether they believed it or not. So instead, we all waited in our cars in the parking lot for people to start coming in. I wanted to see if me being the preacher’s daughter would have any influence on whether or not people followed my behavior. Well, they did. In fact my first “victims” happened to be three older women that have known me basically my whole life and when they saw me take off my shoes they went ahead and did too! I almost stopped them because I felt bad but I waited until they were inside and could sit down to put them back on. I was afraid they would be upset but they actually thought it was pretty funny (thankfully). I did it again by myself and a whole family with two small children all took off their shoes as well. I didn’t even know these people all that well. The next time we waited until a bunch of people were coming in at the same time and I stayed in my car and watched as three of my friends went before them and took off their shoes. This time, it took them a little while longer to join in but after discussing it with each other, they eventually all did. There was not one person that didn’t take off their shoes. I