Thanks for Conforming

Qiuyue Luo

Sobia Saleem

English 151-B

September 24th, 2016

Thanks For Conforming

        A young women, a college professor from Ohlone College, Sobia Saleem, curious if her students would follow the rule of conformity, Sobia Saleem imitated one of Noam Shpancer’s experiments to prove that human conform. During the experiment, Sobia asked her students who arrived in class on time to hold their phones up and follow her to walk out the classroom in one line when the late students came. It was interesting that every late student conformed to do the same thing even though they didn’t know what happened. That’s how conformity works. According to the oxford dictionary, conformity has three definition: a) Compliance with standards, rules, or laws; b) behavior in accordance with socially accepted conventions; c) similarity in form or type; agreement in character. It seems like that conforming makes people give selves away, however, human need conformity to survive and function in public acceptance (Shpancer), Society harmony, and human nature.

        Conformity helps people to be accepted by the public. Imaging a situation that when people all wear heavy coats in the severe winter, but one of them wear short sleeves and walks on the street. That person would be seen as a freak. Usually, the one who wears inappropriate dress would get more attention and be seen as different. It is always difficult for people to accept the things that they are uncertain or unfamiliar with compare to the things that they used to. The people who don’t conform would be more likely to receive negative attitude or stronger emotion from people around than the people who conform. Take buying iPhone as another example. To own an iPhone becomes a fashion in the society, especially in China. Once the new iPhones come out, people all want to buy them because they want to have the same thing as other do, so they can remain the sameness, and sameness makes people feel comfort. To act the same is easier to be accepted in the society. Because human have adapt this world in which not to conform or different from others is not easy accepted in the society. And that is not human’s fault. That is the survival skills for all herd animals.

        Conformity helps the human society keep harmonious.  One of the examples is that people conform others to follow the traffic rules. When they see the red lights, they stop; green lights, they go. If there is one car that jumps a red light, people feel uncomfortable with it. The driver would be thought as reckless. Suppose nobody conform others to follow the traffic rules, the traffic would be a mess, and the road would be a river of car. Most important thing is that there would be a ton of car accidents. However, conformity, at this point, works to help people follow each other to follow the rules. The other phenomenon in people’s real life is that people automatically line up when they see other people do. It is for sure that many of them want to jump the queue, however, not conform others make them feel guilty.  It is common to see a long line in front of a shop or a store. Usually, there won’t be any sign to tell people how to line up, but they do it perfectly. That is because conformity is functioning. People conform when they see most of the people are lining up. Conformity somehow helps the society to be in order. Without conformity, the human society would be a mess since people have no consciousness of obeying majority.