Let me tell you about a wee little one, who played to the tune of a cautionary tale. His name was John Doe. All his life the people around him told him, “just keep your head down and don’t make trouble for yourself,” “don’t be smart with me young man,” or a personal favorite, “why can’t you be more like so-and-so?” Because he hasn’t had any actual character definition in his own life, he looks to others for guidance, or to fit in. Now depending on the people that resonate with little John, there may be different impressions left, but what if he emulates the wrong sort- maybe the sort who did just what he’s doing now to an even worse crowd. Now John feels like he is doing something right because he is fitting in with peers, and isn’t making
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It could be anything, from a practical joke taken too far, to an armed robbery, fill what you may. Now John feels the ramifications that can come from following others without a mind of yourself to make choices in morality. He feels the repercussions of Conformity. We as people are susceptible to influence and persuasion toward the whim of the people who we surround ourselves with, especially when paired with an anti-individualistic standpoint, where we glorify and idolize people of stature in our world, creating a dependency and a lack of independence. This is Conformity, a social phenomenon that while natural and necessary for our continued survival, can have negative impact on the way one goes through this world when we aren’t conscientious of it and use our best judgement to exhibit moderation. We see a pattern in the Asch experiments, notice the different types of conformity, realize why we conform, discover what happens when conformity is not necessary, and acknowledge the benefits in conformity. We all conform in one way or another, but why do we do it if everyone tells us not …show more content…
On March 13, 1964, a crime occurred that showed the effects of others on the whole. As Lauren Slater describes the event in her book, Opening Skinner’s Box, just before sunrise in Queens, New York, a woman named Catherine Genovese was coming home from work when she was stabbed by a hooded man. She screamed, yet no one came. Despite witnesses in the buildings around her, the man was able to stab her multiple times over a thirty-five-minute time span and attempt at rape. Thirty eight witness and no one stepped in with more than a shout down of “leave that girl alone.” Thirty eight people just stood and watched (96-97). Why would they not do something? Why couldn’t they just run down their stairs and throw a bottle at the man or call the police? I would speculate that it was because those people watching from their little apartments saw that no one else was helping so it was safer to stay inside. If just one person had shown themselves in that street then dozens of others would have followed. But no one came so no one followed. “It’s probably safer just to let someone else take care of it,” they might have thought, “no one else is trying so why should I?” Those people were all conforming to each other’s lack of action. This might seem like idiocy, but it was safer inside because there wasn’t a killer inside. It’s dangerous without backup, and not
It could be anything, from a practical joke taken too far, to an armed robbery, fill what you may. Now John feels the ramifications that can come from following others without a mind of yourself to make choices in morality. He feels the repercussions of Conformity. We as people are susceptible to influence and persuasion toward the whim of the people who we surround ourselves with, especially when paired with an anti-individualistic standpoint, where we glorify and idolize people of stature in our world, creating a dependency and a lack of independence. This is Conformity, a social phenomenon that while natural and necessary for our continued survival, can have negative impact on the way one goes through this world when we aren’t conscientious of it and use our best judgement to exhibit moderation. We see a pattern in the Asch experiments, notice the different types of conformity, realize why we conform, discover what happens when conformity is not necessary, and acknowledge the benefits in conformity. We all conform in one way or another, but why do we do it if everyone tells us not …show more content…
On March 13, 1964, a crime occurred that showed the effects of others on the whole. As Lauren Slater describes the event in her book, Opening Skinner’s Box, just before sunrise in Queens, New York, a woman named Catherine Genovese was coming home from work when she was stabbed by a hooded man. She screamed, yet no one came. Despite witnesses in the buildings around her, the man was able to stab her multiple times over a thirty-five-minute time span and attempt at rape. Thirty eight witness and no one stepped in with more than a shout down of “leave that girl alone.” Thirty eight people just stood and watched (96-97). Why would they not do something? Why couldn’t they just run down their stairs and throw a bottle at the man or call the police? I would speculate that it was because those people watching from their little apartments saw that no one else was helping so it was safer to stay inside. If just one person had shown themselves in that street then dozens of others would have followed. But no one came so no one followed. “It’s probably safer just to let someone else take care of it,” they might have thought, “no one else is trying so why should I?” Those people were all conforming to each other’s lack of action. This might seem like idiocy, but it was safer inside because there wasn’t a killer inside. It’s dangerous without backup, and not