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The issue of Conformity is one of deep social importance. We often think of this from the perspective of right
verses wrong, and how to keep people in compliance with society’s expectations. We seldom consider just how
dangerous Conformity can be. Some of the most horrific acts of human violence, such as Slavery and the Nazi
Holocaust, were made possible because of Obedience and Conformity to social expectations. As clearly as
we look back and see these things as Deviant and socially wrong, entire societies lived through them and
clearly saw them as non-deviant and socially acceptable. The research of sociology has a lot to say about how
tragic events such as these can and do occur. The one thing that this research shows is that it is not because of
psychological damage or insanity. Instead, most research shows that it is because of just how socially normal
these situations end up looking and feeling to the people involved.
We look back to the chapter on social organization for one large piece of the explanation. Formal
Organizations like Bureaucracies have a tremendous power over individual action and consolidate power in the
hands of relatively few people. Clearly, when entire branches of formal government organizations are
developed and dedicated to the task of eliminating an entire group of people, it gets increasingly hard for any
single individual to say anything to stop it. When you further connect the task of eliminating another race of
people to national pride, dress it up in fancy uniforms, and reward people for doing a great job of it, most people
never stop to think it is something that should be protested. For the micro-sociological view of this, see the
section in Chapter 7 on Stanley Milgram and his Obedience studies.
The second piece is something in sociology that we call Bystander Apathy. This has been demonstrated over
and over again in both real and experimental settings alike. When even excessively violent crimes are
committed; research shows the more people that are present and witness to the crime the less likely any one
person is to intervene. When there are relatively few witnesses, individuals feel more responsible and are more
prone to take action. In a crowd of many, individuals tend to deflect responsibility and assume someone else
will take care of it. If no one else is doing anything about it, it must be OK.
The third piece, is just how powerful group consensus can be in shaping an individual’s perception and
behavior. You can see this directly through the following Youtube video link.
It is a classic experiment performed by a researcher named Solomon Asch.
For this paper I would like for you to prepare a two-page paper which:
a) Defines and contrasts the terms Deviance, Obedience, and Conformity within sociology.
b) Summarize the overall setup and findings of this research experiment. What conditions were altered to
examine outcomes in the different trials? Define and contrast how the overall findings are related to the
concepts of Informational Conformity and Normative Conformity.
c) Explain how competing sets of social pressures can be working to create both Deviance and Conformity at
the same time. In other words, what happens when two groups have very different views of the same behavior.
For example, in our society we have laws that expect Obedience, and say underage youth cannot drink alcohol.
But at the same time we have a culture which encourages and sells alcohol everywhere, which in many ways
says drinking alcohol is Conforming to society. The key is to see this as one specific behavior, that the
individual is stuck always being deviant and always being conformist no matter what they do. A kid that drinks
is conforming to peers, but deviant to laws. A kid that does not drink is conforming to laws, but deviant to the
larger culture.
d) Apply these findings to one specific behavior (not kids drinking or using drugs because that
is the example above.) you see in the real world where Social Conformity and Deviance are acting to
put conflicting expectations on individuals.
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