Psychology proved to be one of my favorite classes this semester but the topic that was most intriguing to myself would have to be conformity. Conformity refers to altering your behavior because of group pressures or to fit into a stereotype that you want to be apart of. I always thought it was interesting how people can let this happen and stray away from what they think is right or wrong based on external influences, such as people. The Asch study made the event of conformity even more ridiculous when a test subject would give the wrong answer because the rest of the group did, even when they knew it to be wrong.
I never have thought of myself as one to conform when in reality I probably do it regularly. I always believe that my behavior is consistent with who I represent myself as and not what others are influencing it to be. Although this may be true sometimes, when looking at the people I surround myself with I will often conform to the behaviors of my friends and the groups I am apart of. Although it makes sense to have similar tendencies and behaviors as your friend group the result can be a cross group deindividuation. What I mean by this is that people who become to comfortable in the group there in will end up always going with the flow of others around them, resulting in not necessarily a loss of identity, but a change of identity that is similar to those you surround yourself with on a regular basis. This is not a bad thing, but what I believe is that people should never limit themselves to a certain group of people, especially if they have a negative influence on you. CHANGE IS GOOD and helps you develop into a more concrete individual by learning to step outside your comfort zone and do something completely different then what your regular friends would.
