Conformity is when a person develops behavior in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards. Solomon Asch conducted an experiment in 1950 were they placed one person in a room full of actors, a card with three lines on it would be shown to everyone in the room and they had to pick which line was the longest. The actors would purposely choose the wrong line hoping to see if the subject would go along with the group or make the correct choice. Asch’s conformity experiment was meant to show that people are more likely to conform to an idea to appease whatever social norm is accepted by the vast majority of people in that society. I believe that without conformity society would be chaotic, and civilization would come to a standstill
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However, the benefits do not come without their flaws, conforming although on a general level seem like they can do no wrong they do however limit the individual person quite a bit. For example, conformist do not change the world, non-conformist question the ideas and ways of their current world and challenge it, without this sort of checks and balance in the way of non-conformity, technology would become stagnate and growth within the species is nonexistent. Another negative to conformity is a lack of diversity without that diverse culture everyone believes the same thing and culture within that society becomes dull, innovated thinking is hard to come by because everyone believes and thinks the same way. Although rules and laws keep the people in line, some of the laws that society makes can be unjust to certain minority groups who don’t have as much power in the group as the majority do. This is another way that nonconformist invoke checks and balances, conformity in people forces them to go along with the status quo of society and breaking the laws of the society is considered chaotic, however for change on a massive scale to occur people have to be willing to break some laws. On a Public scale the risk and reward of conformity seems pretty simple, in order to have a productive and healthy society we need a majority of people to follow in
However, the benefits do not come without their flaws, conforming although on a general level seem like they can do no wrong they do however limit the individual person quite a bit. For example, conformist do not change the world, non-conformist question the ideas and ways of their current world and challenge it, without this sort of checks and balance in the way of non-conformity, technology would become stagnate and growth within the species is nonexistent. Another negative to conformity is a lack of diversity without that diverse culture everyone believes the same thing and culture within that society becomes dull, innovated thinking is hard to come by because everyone believes and thinks the same way. Although rules and laws keep the people in line, some of the laws that society makes can be unjust to certain minority groups who don’t have as much power in the group as the majority do. This is another way that nonconformist invoke checks and balances, conformity in people forces them to go along with the status quo of society and breaking the laws of the society is considered chaotic, however for change on a massive scale to occur people have to be willing to break some laws. On a Public scale the risk and reward of conformity seems pretty simple, in order to have a productive and healthy society we need a majority of people to follow in