We discussed in class the relationship between conformity and obedience within the human mind. For starters, almost obvious, behavior is contagious, people follow other people’s behavior in order to fit in and conform with the group. We discussed in class the experiment done by Solomon Asch and the group of people in an elevator. Whenever a group of people that were a part of the experiment changed positions or were standing facing away from the door in the elevator, nonparticipants followed the group, changing their behavior to match the group (conformity). Obedience is a little different, people comply with social pressures like conformity, but obedience adds in commands of an authority figure, which makes people even more pressured to conform. We also can discuss the Chameleon effect, which is unconsciously mimicking other’s expressions, postures, and voice tones.
All throughout high school, I was always a leader, specifically on my varsity sports teams I was captain. Of course, when you are captain, you want to lead by example and show the rest of the team how to act and work hard. By me always working hard, listening to my coach, having a positive attitude, etc. it got others to follow me, and most of the time the entire team to conform to this behavior. No one wanted to be the odd man out, or risk getting in trouble by our coaches, so if I led by example, my teammates were likely to follow this behavior since behavior is contagious. The Chameleon effect is a big deal on sports teams. If my teammates see me talking back to my coach, having a bad attitude or acting like I do not care, they will follow these expressions, postures, and “voices” themselves; therefore, I needed to make sure at all times these three aspects were always positive because I never knew who was watching me at any time. Even though I always tried my best to get my entire team to comply with similar attitudes and actions like mine, not everyone always would follow, which is where obedience comes into play. Some people needed that higher authority figure like my coach in order to behave, or the social pressures of fans and the other team and games in order to comply. As you can see, conformity and obedience play a big role in places like school and sports teams, especially at levels like middle and high school with many social pressures.