TEXT: Principles of Social Psychology, v. 1.0: Introducing Social Psychology
Original Question:
For this week's Forum, respond to the following:
Think of a group to which you belong. It can be a work group such as a civilian company or a branch of the military, a family or friendship group, a church, or a personal interest group such as regularly meeting shared hobby enthusiasts.
How do you think conformity influenced the formation of the group and may maintain it? How much conformity occurs in this group? How does it get what it needs/wants from its members?
Reply to the following response with 200 words minimum. (please make response as if having a conversation, respond directly to some of the statements in below post. This is not providing an analysis of the original post. Respectfully address it and even ask clarifying or additional questions.)
1. For this week's topic I went to my sister because I knew she had some conformity happening when she was attending Paul Mitchell.
A group that I play a major role in is one that was created when my sister was in cosmetology school 5 years ago.
There were people at school that didn't take school seriously or were frequently absent and some of the ladies, while outside on lunch, started talking about how distracting these other people were in class. The ladies she was closest with in cosmetology school referred to each other as the "hair girls".
They formed a group out of necessity to study together and to push each other to the next level with hair. Her hair girls and her stay connected through social media mostly such as Instagram and Twitter. They do get together in person once a year.
Conformity plays a role in her group and she usually count on one or two ladies of the ten to challenge techniques for hair color or new styles.
An example would be about four years ago when balayage (hair painting) and ombre styles were becoming more popular. One group member threw a fit when a technique video was posted in their private Instagram group explaining that ombre hair styles will be the end of stylist and that their years of training and perfecting foiling highlights were being undermined by this new freehand style of highlighting without foils.
Then another lady said it just looks like everyone is walking around with regrowth (roots) and that ombre looks awful and the style allows more time between salon visits which will lose money for stylists. Other group members spoke up about how beautiful and natural these techniques look and that they were less damaging to the client's hair because less chemical product was being used on the hair.
A few of them took the class or figured out the technique on their own while the group was split in argument over social media.Two years later my sister's costs were down from not using foils and from using less product. Her clients were happy and paying her like they would for a full head of foils plus inflation.
At that point the look was catching on and stylist that couldn't balayage or ombre were going to get left behind by clients and lose money for not being up to date on technique.
Now, four years later, everyone is on board with a trend that 20% of her group didn't want to have any part of. The wild colors and rainbow hair is the newest discussion in their private group. She has always enjoyed doing wild hair, so she was excited to discuss techniques and brands of color, but a couple ladies stand firm that it is ugly or trashy and anyone can do that wild color to their own hair.
She has learned that it is good to have people challenge amongst the group because it pushes them to question trends and to get further education on new techniques. She also learned that people will conform out of necessity and if there are proven benefits such as more money in commission. Her goal within the group is to share beautiful, lucrative ideas, and to keep conversations positive so ideas can flow.
2. I did belong to a group of volunteer parents for my son's school in Maryland about 1.5 years ago. This group held monthly meetings to plan the school year with the teacher of the 2nd grade class. Since this was a private school with mandatory volunteer 84 volunteer hours a year per two parent household and 42 per one parent household.
So, what we as parents did to help each other is we would take care of the class room, the teacher, the children with whatever they needed. We took a poll of what the parent liked to do and tried to give each parent the tasks that they were really good so that it would not feel like a chore.
We met monthly to ensure that everybody had everything they needed and were happy with their respective project or task. With all 15 children's parents working together the children seemed a buzz every day. It was as though the parental involvement changed the motivation of the children. I have to say it was rather tiring to be at the school all the time, but, my son and all the other children thrived on this interaction that it made everything worthwhile.
Based on our reading I think a sense of conformity influenced this group and maintained it because we all had the same common goal. Initially it was to complete the volunteer hours, but eventually turned into a motivation for the successful year of our second graders. Typically, the group conforms because we have the same goal, but, not because of the rules.
By maintaining the relationship with the teacher and the classroom the parents begin to see a transformation in their children. The parents get the volunteer hours which is the main reason we are all there during the first couple of meetings, but, then, we begin to see growth, in our spirited children that captivate us into wanting to maintain this group and keep up the motivation of our children that we forget we are there because we have to complete 84 volunteer hours.
I think this group began to realize that our decision to act upon our matching beliefs and our children's behaviors is what set the tone for non-communicated rules. We did not have rules, we just had tasks that were going to help the teacher and children have successful kids, so, it was as though we have unconscious influences on each other versus social pressure or peer pressure. We just believed in the school, the teacher and most importantly our children.
Bennie
3. My parents have told me that I have followed the own beat of my drum since I was able to speak, which I think showed my future inability to conform. However, I did participate in a few extracurricular activities and groups in and outside of school, like ceramics club, environment club, and youth group at church. The first two gave the kids the ability to create/plant whatever they choose.
I loved them both! Youth group was a bit different. The beliefs of the church held the formation of the group together and the churchgoers maintained the conformity by listening to the pastor's teachings from the Bible. The church did have Bible studies to discuss their questions and if any concerns with the teachings, but the conformity was very strong.
When the elders began openly accepting gay members in the church, it was something I was pleased with and had pride in my church that they were accepting others the way the Bible tells us. Unfortunately, when the stance of illegal immigrants came into the sermon, I learned my beliefs did not align with half of the church. This sermon caused members to openly discuss their anti-immigration beliefs and the pastor began teaching more interpretations of the Bible that I did not align with my beliefs.
Stangor says "We conform to social influence in part to meet cognitive goals of forming accurate knowledge of the world around us"(2012). Even though it was my family's church, I told them I did not want to go any more because of the ideas and goals the pastor preaches do not align with the teachings of loving unconditionally. Being a young adult at this point, I consciously refused to conform to their beliefs and ended my affiliation with the group.
As we learned from this week's lesson, negative stereotyping of outgroups can be especially damaging in task oriented groups. The church's "task" is to welcome everyone and show the ways of Jesus, but their stance on immigration was eye-opening to see the task was not going to be completed by promoting hate towards another group.
Months later, I connected with a few people I met at church and we discussed the reasons why I left. Unfortunately, I experienced group shift before the conversation really started and have not seen them outside of Facebook. I am not one to normatively conform, and think the members of the church were informatively conforming and only looking at the elders for reaction and behavior cues. The church maintained conformity by offering a sense of family and unconditional love to the members.
The world is a scary place and it is a little less scary inside of church. People view it as a safe haven and do not think their pastor could be teaching inaccurate knowledge, but prime example of this happening is Westboro Baptist Church. My past church was nothing like Westboro, but saw the same hate coming out and decided it was time to break away before normative conformity takes place.
Stangor, C. (2012). Principles of Social Psychology: Introduction to Social Psychology (1st. ed.). Saylor Academy.