When we think of community, we think of a collaborative effort brought together
by a group of people with a common goal. For most, community is a key aspect of life. Many people are involved in community and public events in order to socialize and provide what is needed among their neighbors.
Many different kinds of communities exist in our culture today. We have church communities, school communities, neighborhood communities, and even simply communities of common interest. These groups get together often and can help influence each other of completing common goals, share information, and even collaborate on new ideas.
Most of the things communities do are harmless and really only serve a purpose to better the lives of the individuals living inside them. But at the same time, these communities are pushing for conformity.
Conformity is defined as “changing one’s behavior to act in a way that is consistent with the behavior or expectation of others” (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012).
Basically, no one likes the noisy neighbor that throws a party on a Tuesday night that until dawn. And no one enjoys listening to the buzzkill talk about work at the company Christmas party. When people stick out like a sore thumb, it upsets the community, so people tend to wonder toward communities that are more to their liking. Catholics hang out with other Catholics, Liberals hang out with other Liberals, and kids tend to trick-or-treat on their own street.
There’s more to this, though; a bigger picture.
While there are a plethora of small groups a person can choose to part of, community exists on a much larger scale. It goes above and beyond your church group, your political affiliation, or even what neighborhood you grew up in. At the end of the day we live under communities that have a much stronger influence. Conformity starts at a higher level. We 
have the government, consumerism, media mayhem, and even capitalism all breathing conformity down our necks, and most of the time, we don’t even recognize it.
The world may not quite be as extreme as the movie The Truman Show, but it certainly helps personify how our culture works.
“The movie has been universally interpreted as an allegory of the sinister influence of the media upon our lives … It is a story that reveals an essential truth about what is happening to society in the 20th century, . . . [i.e.] how the media and corporations have begun to surround us with a universe of illusions” (Goldman, 2005).
At the end of the day, we are living in a small portion of the world around us. We go to our potluck dinners, our neighborhood block parties, and are bat-mitzvahs, but the entire time
we are being subjected to the powers of coercion and manipulation. To contribute to a larger community. A community where we, the individual, are not in charge.
“We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented, it’s as simple as that.” – The Truman Show
“If his was more than just a vague ambition, if he was absolutely determined to discover the truth, there’s no way we could prevent him.” – The Truman Show
References
Feldman, E.S., Rudin, S., Niccol, A., Schroeder, A. (Producers), & Weir, P. (Director). (1998). The Truman Show [Motion picture]. USA: Paramount Pictures.
Goldman, P. (2005). Consumer Society and its Discontents: The Truman Show and The Day of the Locust. Westminster College. Retrieved from http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap1002/truman.htm
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
I remember that movie, “The Truman Show” and at first I thought how weird it was. But that was quite a while ago. Looking back now and having learned a lot more about conformity and maybe a bit or Groupthink, it makes more sense.
In the movie everyone thinks the same, dresses very sterile and conforms to the visions of the social media. Seriously everyone looks like they are shooting a Disneyland commercial 24/7.
The term conformity is often used to indicate an agreement to the majority position, brought about either by a desire to ‘fit in’ or be liked (normative) or because of a desire to be correct (informational), or simply to conform to a social role (identification) (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). Conformity is a type of social influence involving a change in belief or behavior in order to fit in with a group. This change is in response to real or imagined group pressure. Conformity can also be simply defined as “yielding to group pressures.”
Reading this blog also reminds me of the movie, “The Invention of Lying” where no body every told a lie. They didn’t even know what that was. It wasn’t until the main characters Mother is dying in the hospital and he tells her not to worry because she is going somewhere much better where all of her dreams come true. The hospital staff is standing in the room when he says this stuff, and of course, believes him because lying wasn’t invented yet. Great movie. Anyway it reminds me of how strong social conformity can be and all it takes is one person to veer from the pack to get others to notice and question their environment around them.
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, Inc.