Conformity Psychology

Conformity is a social psychological phenomenon that occurs in humans’ everyday lives, but oftentimes goes unrecognized. Through psychological studies such as Milgram’s prisoner experiment, psychologists even discovered that in some situations social pressures exert such strong pressures on conformity that people will go to extreme lengths when under its influence. Prominent examples of conformity include the pressure people have to wear similar types of clothing, language pressure that results in people using the same types of slang, and even the music and food people eat can occur as a means of conforming to social norms. I have had a number of personal experiences with conformity. In terms of others, I have recognized that conformity has contributed to my having increased levels of judgments regarding their behavior. In the situation, I was at a student study center I regularly attended. This study center was open late and oftentimes I would go there at night to study or to merely get out of my house. The social standards of no music or talking would occur at one side of the center during the day, while more noise was permitted
While at first I attributed my anger at the individual to his disturbing my concentration, I came to realize that I was perhaps angrier at him for not conforming to the social conventions that had been established in the workspace. That is, at first I judged him on his dispositional factors, as a careless and selfish person. However, after reflecting on the situation, I realized that my being upset occurred more because of me being bothered at his not conforming to the situational factors. After recognizing this, I broke social conventions myself and just moved to the opposite side of the room at night, rather than conforming to the earlier established