Obedience and Conformity
“Conformity is going along with the crowd” (Chapter 9, pg. 310). “Like obedience, conformity has had a bad reputation among social psychologists, and this stems in part from influential early studies that depicted people doing foolish, irrational, or bad things in order to conform” (pg. 310).
Why do we conform and obey? Of course we know and our text points out that obedience can also be a good thing, a “prosocial behavior” (pg. 293-294) and that it is a necessary part of our cooperative daily living.
Your discussion post:
Describe a scenario in which you were persuaded to do something that you did not really want to do. (Of course you do not have to use any example that is too personal or makes you uncomfortable.)
For example:
- Have you ever worn a fashion that you didn’t even like just to fit in with your peer group?
- Have you ever pretended to agree with your friends because you feared being different?
- After describing your scenario think about what the text says concerning the reasons we conform and obey.
- What made you conform? Be sure to cite resources in your post.
