Psychological Conformity In Logan Feyes's The Sociology Of Leopard Man

Do you, as an individual, conform to society or do you like to show people that you are different than most others? Out of the seven billion people who live in this world, most would say they conform to society, which is very natural. Humans are social beings and conforming to society is one way that we show each other that we are like them. Sometimes we feel obligated to conform by the people we respect, look up to, or people who are in higher positions than us. In the article, “The Sociology of Leopard Man”, Logan Feyes states that, “conformity can be seen as the world’s most common but dangerous psychological disorder.” (6). I completely agree with his statement but do you believe that conformity is the most dangerous psychological …show more content…
We dress similarly to the people around us. We act differently when we are around different people so that we feel like we fit in more. Like others, I have and still conform to society. In eighth grade, I moved to a different state and I had no friends. Because I had no friends, I started to become very sad and I never wanted to leave my room. I became slightly depressed because I missed all of my friends from back home and I knew that they were still making more friends and living their lives without me. I wasn’t as social in school as I was at my old school because I didn’t have any other support system besides my family. I thought the best way to make friends was to conform and start dressing like the kids at my school. I also began listening to the same music that everyone liked, so that I could have something to talk about with them. I started making friends easily after that because we had similar interests. After a while, I realized that hiding my true self and conforming to their interests wasn’t going to help me. I started sharing my interests with my new friends and found out that a lot of them liked the same things that I did. Soon after that, I decided that I couldn’t live in the past and I had to live my new life in my new town. I started looking at life positively and decided that moving was supposed to show me something important in life: being yourself is how you’ll be happy. …show more content…
In fact, social media and celebrities can sometimes influence these disorders. Anorexia is a type of eating disorder which is when someone has “a lack or loss of appetite for food”. It usually begins when someone sees themselves as ‘fat’, according to society, and they force themselves not to eat so that they won’t look ‘fat’ anymore. It is a very serious disorder which can be caused by anything. For example, let’s say there is young girl who wants to look like a model, but her body is not the same size or shape as a certain model or celebrity. She may begin to diet and eat less so that she will lose weight. After a while, it could turn into something much more serious, like anorexia, in which conforming to society’s ‘norms’ has affected her mental state. Her desire to look like a model, changed into something more serious. Nowadays, teenagers have social media right at their fingertips connecting them to the whole world. They have access to everything which includes looking at celebrities and comparing themselves to those people. These psychological disorders can occur much faster than before. I have personally observed how conformity has psychologically affected one of my best friends. It all began in sixth grade when she tried to be more like the girls at our school. She