Essay About Conformity

Conformity is apart of human nature, instinctive, and built into the sociology of our brains; but why is that? In paleolithic times, people relied on one another to survive; otherwise know as survival in numbers. If an individual was different from others, they could had been looked on as an abnormality; shunned from the others in the group, and death was a possibility. Although this is a worst case scenario, it was a definite possibility in the paleolithic age. After thousands of years of evolution, this autopilot to conform is still imbedded in our sociology today. It is not as much for survival anymore; today, we use it to not stand out in a crowd or not cause a huge scene; however, not standing out in a crowd in a real emergency can be hazardous. No one would break the barrier and be the person to make a scene; in turn, with no one breaking the barrier to begin with, nobody would follow and conform to not doing anything. In the famed smoke-filled room experiment, unsuspecting participants were put in a room that slowly began to fill with smoke. Alone, 75% of the participants exited the room quickly, even leaving their things behind. However, that number dropped to just 10% when there were three or more people in the room who were told to do nothing. The answers that were given as to to why the test subject did not leave is quite disturbing: 1) They did not want to be the only one to stand up and leave; they did not want to cause a scene by over reacting. 2) They thought that everything was alright if nobody was reacting. 3) they were waiting for someone to tell them what to do (“Dangerous Conformity”). It is this type of conformity that is potentially dangerous to …show more content…
Which is why we need to understand and educate ourselves about how conformity in the sociology of our brains works; strengthening our ability to resist its powerful pressure in order to find a healthy