Is being a hipster too mainstream if you are a hipster

Chapter Six Reflection

This chapter isn't as simple as the other side of the fence, opposite to Persuasion; that s the actor, and this is the audience. It seems easy to fall into that trap. They're beside each other and talk about sort of the same thing. As has been the theme, it isn't as simple as that.

To backtrack, persuasion is trying to make someone do what you want (them to do). In a very simple sense, yes, conformity is those people listening to you, obeying you. And we can end it at that, but research shows us that that isn't the entire picture. Accepting that as the entire picture highlights something I realised just now (changing my opinion to my current opinion that it isn't as simple as that). Would that mean compliance, obedience, acceptance, only happens when there is an act of persuasion?

It initially would seem so. To obey, that means there is an order, a command, and you are following it. But I guess my problem with this is that I see persuasion as a more complete, more subtle killer. Have you really persuaded someone if they are insincere with their withdrawal? I figure this dynamic only works with acceptance. They are sincere, and they accept the soundness of your argument and the physical attractiveness of your endorsers.

The chapter proceeds to outline some classic experiments that we've all heard before. The Milgram experiments, Asch, Sherif, contagious yawning and mimicry. What came off as much more interesting was what is called the Werther effect whose idea of copycat killers (also suicides) has been fed to us via television procedurals and “psychological thrillers”. It sort of goes away from what we understand as conformity though. There isn't much of a command or social pressure to kill yourself after a highly public suicide. There isn't, right? Maybe I am out of touch with society.

The chapter moves on to something more relevant to me. I want to know, well, how does this happen. What factors could and would make people more obedient?

One factor identified was the victim's distance. He case seems to be that when you are asked to (in the case of Milgram-style experiments) electrocute someone beside you compared to someone in the other room, there is less hesitation with the latter. There is also evidence that the closeness and the legitimacy of the authority is also important. If you think the person of authority is knowledgeable/an expert, you will tend to defer to their commands. This extends to highly esteemed institutions too. Research done by Yale will likely be trusted against a contending study with opposite results done by the Mababang Paaralan ng Tabi-tabi. How all this piece up with Kris Aquino endorsements must be studied.Further research tells us that group size also affects conformity. Being in a group will force you into conformity, but there seems to be data that bigger groups (more than 3-5) give us diminishing returns. This, I guess depends on the situation. And common-sensically, a group of 300 bearing down on you is more distressing and more forceful than a gang of five. But again, that's the data we have. Within a group, unanimity and cohesion also come into play. The less dissent there is, the stronger the status quo is, since everyone is subconsciously waiting for that first guy to stand up. Once that happens, dominoes. There are also bits on how higher SES people also command more attention and conformity and putting out a public pledge strengthens adherence (we want to save face).

What we want to look into now, knowing the side of the environment (of sorts), is the side of the people who conform. Why do they conform? Two things behind this is normative influence and informational influence. The first deal with how we want to go with the crowd. It's more comfortable in the sense that we get relieved from the social pressures to be similar. We could also argue in they way that we want to preserve the status quo friendly relations that would be rocked by dissenting opinion. Informational influence deals with an ambiguous situation and a desire to be in the right. These people seem to know what they're saying, maybe they're right. Certain people also have a disposition to conform. Personality and a positive mood. The cultural background (collectivist cultures conform more easily), and the social roles you are put into and its mastery over you (although that is a more situational argument now).

Now, while the text indicates some points when people want to be different (I'm delightfully—or boringly—at the norm for both indicators), it's more of a deviance (haha), and the norm is to conform. It's a settled issue which sort of makes it less juicy to study. We also cleared up in class earlier whether this conformity evolves into conversion (it does). So yeah. It's a bit of a dead end. We see how conformity is good in that it doesn't get you into bad situations and awkward situations, and the press for how to resist conformity doesn't make as much sense as how to resist persuasion (where we colour the latter as evil). Although I wonder if we could enhance and strengthen people's level of these (for I don't know what noble reason).

Also important to note here is that conformity isn't simply imitating and acting how others act, but being affected by how others act in terms of behaviour and belief. I guess we could go another level and say (an empirical question) that a person could conform to stuff they think is happening. It may not be the case, but they may have misinterpreted what the norm really is. Maybe new research could test this.