We are guided by social norms (e.g. behaving appropriately in class, being filial to your parents, constant need for self-improvement, being punctual for work) throughout our lives. When we deviate from these norms that are present within the culture, environment, family or social groups that we belong to, we often feel pressure from others to conform to the beliefs and values that members of the group believe in. This may manifest in the form of other members within the group persuading you to ‘go with the flow’, or if persuasion doesn’t work, say something like ‘why are you trying to make life difficult for yourself and other people around you?’ So what exactly constitutes conformity? Why do people conform?
Breckler, Olson, and Wiggins (2006) in the Social psychology ‘Alive’ textbook, defined conformity as any modification in behaviour of an individual caused by influence from others. Often, when we are presented with a novel or unique situation, we tend to look around at what others are doing to decide how we should behave. For example, when you went clubbing for the first time, you probably looked around at how other people in the club were behaving and then decided how you should behave to fit in with the crowd. Sometimes, following the crowd may be the best way to do things or at least to avoid looking stupid, especially when the situation is ambiguous and you feel doubtful of your own opinion. For example, you try to imitate other diners’ behaviour the first time you ate at a French restaurant because you didn’t know which cutlery to use for each course. According to the authors, conformity happens due to informational influences and normative influences. Informational influences are said to happen when individuals are motivated to be correct and to acquire precise information. That is depending on other people’s opinion or behaviour as a source of information which is thought to be practical in a certain situation, especially when the individual is uncertain about the right answer. Normative influences are said to happen when individuals are motivated by hankering after rewards or to avoid punishment. The individual may not consider the other person’s opinion or behaviour as correct, but want to be seen as likable or to avoid conflict within the group. The pressure to conform is especially evident in young children who want to be seen as ‘good’ and adolescents who feel the need to ‘fit in with their clique’.
Learning about the concept of conformity, I realized many examples of conformity took place within my kindergarten class that I used to teach. An example portraying informational influence on conformity occurred when I asked the children a question during lesson (e.g. Why do we need sunlight?). I would ask each of them for their opinion of what they thought was the correct answer. Those children who had some knowledge of the concept would shout out their answers. Sometimes, the children who did not know the answer would try to guess, but end up agreeing that their opinion was incorrect when some other classmates said out loud that their answer was wrong without even asking the teacher. There was one instance where I asked one child why he thought his answer was wrong when his classmates said so, even though I had not given him any feedback on whether his answer was right or wrong. He told me that was because the child who said so was clever and that he was afraid his classmates might not like him if he disagreed.
An example portraying normative influence on conformity occurred during the children’s free play time. The children were sharing a box of lego toys to play with while waiting for their turn to shower. There were a few pieces of lego they considered as special. Every time they laid hands on the lego box, they would scramble to gather as many special pieces as they could to make their lego construction look better than the rest. However, knowing that I would punish all of them (by not allowing them to play) if any of them complained that their friends were not sharing the special pieces, they came to a consensus to share the special pieces among a few of them. Unfortunately, one child was left out of the group and did not have any special piece to use. He went around to his other friends to try to borrow one piece but was rejected. So he came up to me sadly to tell me that his friends didn’t want to share the special pieces with him. Before I could say anything, one of the children quickly asked him to go over to join him and offered to share his special lego piece with the poor boy. The boy who offered to share was probably afraid that I might stop the whole class from playing, since one of them complained to me that the rest of the children were not sharing the special pieces of lego with him. Although the children didn’t agree with me at first that they should share the special lego pieces so everyone has a chance to use them, they did as they were told lest I stopped them from playing with the toys.
3 comments:
Thats an interesting article you have there. However, don't you find it familiar? It seem to be coinciding with the behaviours mentioned by Jean Piaget isn't it? Based on the fact that the child until a certain age will tend to work together for a certain objective. In this world, humans can be categorised into many categories. One of those may be those who go with the flow and those who did not. Although sometimes we hated those who did not go with the flow, we have to admit that its those who did not go with the flow will have a higher chance of churning out something new that may improve our lifes. Consider how the light is invented. Einstein did not go with the flow but instead kept to his idea to finally invented the one of the thing that we needed most in our life. So if you want to be successful, perhaps you can try thinking out of the box and not going with the flow sometimes. Who knows, you may become Singapore 1st Nobel Laurete.
hmm, are you refering to Piaget's preoperational stage? well, according to his theory, children 3 years and below are egocentric in nature (only have ability to see things from their own point of view), usually unable to engage in cooperative play. However, since my children are between 5 to 6 years of age, they have been taught and are able to engage in cooperative play. Also, the school has limited resources and can't cater to every child's whims and fancies. Thus, my point of view is that they have to share the toys in such a way that everyone gets to use it at some point in time during free play (creating win-win situation). Conformity in this sense is good. It causes a need in the child who really wants to have a certain piece of lego to use for longer periods of time to think creatively, out of the box to persuade his friends to conform to his view. That, is creative and strategic thinking skills, which some children in the class were developing during various periods of free play. Instead of overtly going against the norm, I would rather the child work around the limitations in the context to produce something that is creative and original.
there are times that we need to conform to the norms of the society, but at other times, we need to be ourselves. if not, the world would be just 1 person. but when do we conform? and how much do we conform to? does constant conformity changes our attitudes and behavior? do we become more robotic to the norms around us and just doing for the sake of doing?
or does conformity to the world is a result of evolutionary theory? do we conform to the world because we'll feel threatened if we're not the same as the others? how do we justify the actions of ourselves if we do not do what we believe in and at times, do things that are against our beliefs?
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