Since the dawn of humanity, humans have sought out those who are akin to themselves. Out of this search, conformity was birthed. Conformity proved useful during the beginning of human existence. Early humans needed to think and act alike in order to survive. However, as humans progressed, the need for uniformity slowly diminished. Small amounts of people began to break away from prior social constructs, and form their own ideas. These people were often openly chastised for their actions due to the fact society cannot function unless it has a strong following of individuals who adhere to its rules and implications. Therefore, when a person deviates from the social norm and forms ideas that threaten what is socially acceptable, there is
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Often, people will alter their own opinions to mirror the constructs accepted by society. This eradication of individuality has become the subject in numerous scientific studies performed by researchers who want to discover why humans will abandon their own values in order to fit in with society. According to Rongjun Yu and Sai Sun, there are two major types of conformity. If an individual depends on the opinions of others to determine their next mode of action, it is called “informational conformity”. In other cases, people modify their behaviors in order to “fit in” with the community. This is referred to as “normative conformity”, and is an underlying form of social influence. Most, if not all, humans have at least one of the two types of conformity influencing their daily lives. For example, researchers have found that when given unfamiliar songs, a typical point of action in finding the best one is to choose the song most downloaded (Yu, Rongjun). This experiment demonstrates how as humans we often follow the majority, rather than listen to our own intuition. A very drastic example of this can be found within the rise of Nazi Germany. In this particular case, the power of the majority resulted in one of the largest acts of genocide in human history. Conformity, in Nazi Germany, meant living with the fact that, according to society, certain people deserved to
Often, people will alter their own opinions to mirror the constructs accepted by society. This eradication of individuality has become the subject in numerous scientific studies performed by researchers who want to discover why humans will abandon their own values in order to fit in with society. According to Rongjun Yu and Sai Sun, there are two major types of conformity. If an individual depends on the opinions of others to determine their next mode of action, it is called “informational conformity”. In other cases, people modify their behaviors in order to “fit in” with the community. This is referred to as “normative conformity”, and is an underlying form of social influence. Most, if not all, humans have at least one of the two types of conformity influencing their daily lives. For example, researchers have found that when given unfamiliar songs, a typical point of action in finding the best one is to choose the song most downloaded (Yu, Rongjun). This experiment demonstrates how as humans we often follow the majority, rather than listen to our own intuition. A very drastic example of this can be found within the rise of Nazi Germany. In this particular case, the power of the majority resulted in one of the largest acts of genocide in human history. Conformity, in Nazi Germany, meant living with the fact that, according to society, certain people deserved to