Conformity. The desire to “fit in” and conform to the expectations of other people is something we all do. Conformity can take a variety of forms, sometimes unconscious and sometimes deliberate. The presence of conformity in our lives can make us act irrationally and have major impacts on our behaviors.
One of the more interesting manifestations of conformity is something called the “chameleon effect”. Also known as unintentional mirroring, this effect describes when we unconsciously copy the actions of someone. In an experiment performed by psychologists Chartrand and Bargh, individuals were asked to have a conversation with one of the experimenters. One of the experimenters would wag their foot, touch their face, and play with their hair, while the other experimenter would sit in a neutral position. This experiment demonstrated that instances of foot wagging increased by 50% and face touching increased by 20% when the experimenter did those.
The results of the Chartrand-Bargh experiment may seem unremarkable and unimportant at first (I mean, who cares if I wag my foot 50% more). However, this experiment reveals a staggering amount about our psychology. It reveals that we care deeply about what others think about us. So much so, that we will unconsciously mimic the actions of others to “fit in” and conform to what they are doing.
This phenomenon of conformity is more explicit in examples of mass hysteria. Mass hysteria is a sociopsychological phenomenon where large groups of people exhibit similar or identical symptoms. Frequently, these symptoms are not traceable to actual symptoms of medical conditions.
One contemporary instance of mass hysteria occurred from 2011 to 2012. Twelve high school girls developed symptoms that resembled Tourette’s syndrome. After this case gained nation-wide attention, several more students came forward with similar symptoms. Eventually, all of these students were diagnosed with a conversion disorder, and the incident was determined to be mass hysteria. There currently exists no known toxin or infection that causes an immediate onset of the tics associated with Tourette’s syndrome.
Another example of mass hysteria occurred in 2002 in North Carolina. A group of ten girls developed seizures, rashes, and other symptoms. These symptoms affected girls across grades and incidents tended to occur an hour after lunch. There is no known cause for these symptoms and this incident was labeled as mass hysteria. The notable aspect of this example is the fact that these people developed physiological symptoms. In the previous example, the symptoms could be produced intentionally. In this instance, however, the people experienced electrical irregularities in the brain and releases cytokines and histamines in their skin.
The latter example demonstrates the extreme power that the brain has over our bodies. Even if we only think that we have a symptom, we can develop it. This is the same reasoning for why we experience the placebo effect.
Fundamentally, these instances of mass hysteria and mimicry are all derived from an unconscious or conscious desire for acceptance from those around us.
We desire to be like those around us, and sometimes our brains make our bodies function in ways that seem outlandish. It is no surprise that those who experienced those cases of mass hysteria were all in the same social group.
The sheer power of our unconscious brain prompts us to investigate further into the ways in which the unconscious affects our day-to-day lives, and we will be covering the ways that you are affected by your unconscious in the next few blogs.
I think this was such a cool post, our brains are absolutelt insance and the fact that they can do so many things subconsciously is really crazy to think (using or brains to think about our brains!) about. I feel like this idea idea of conforming has been heightened with an age of social media. While in the past, we may conform ourselves to the people directly in our lives, no social media projects unrealistic expectations that people strive to conform to, which an be extremely dangerous. I really enjoyed this post!
The fact that most of us tried to fit in with others is not anything new. We all know it, it gives us a sense of comfort and makes us feel at home. When someone is different, they are usually pointed out because of their differences, I think that this is why most of us try to fit in with others, to not be pointed out.
I agree with this. I think that conformity is something we have all experienced, either doing it ourselves or noticing others do it. I didn’t realize how complex it was though, and the Chartrand-Bargh experiment proves that we can try to fit in without even realizing it.