An Abhorrent Lack of Fashion (Also, a Steampunk Video)

Here is a video of people not conforming to how most singers look/act!

I am having a very relaxing evening in my house, glad to be free of the norms of school that require me to wear pants. Despite hating pants with a passion, I have never failed to show up to school in either pants or shorts. Why do I inflict such pain upon myself? No one ever asked me to wear pants to school; no one monitors me in the morning and tells me to put on pants before I leave. This adherence to tacit (or explicit) social behaviours with no direct request is called conformity. And, much to my rebellious teenage self's disdain, conformity seeps into a surprising amount of my behaviours. There are two reasons for which we conform: informational influence and and normative influence (Crutchfield, 1955; Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).

Conformity from informational influence occurs when an individual believes that because a group holds one belief that the group has made a correct judgment. Believing that the consensus is right, the individual agrees with the group for fear of showing an incorrect opinion. This type of conformity occurs commonly in situations when the individual feels that they lack enough knowledge or competence to express a different opinion than the consensus. For me, this is very apparent in my fashion knowledge. Growing up, I cared not about anything fashion-related. When my friends spent their time pouring over fashion-relevant magazines and television shows, I was outside playing in the mud or something. This only became a problem later in life, when I realized that my appearance played a large part in how others perceived me. Suddenly struck with the conundrum of wanting good clothes but crippled by an inability to distinguish nice-fitting pants from mom jeans, I began to pay attention to when my friends talked about fashion.

FASHION!

By engaging myself in a world I had virtually no knowledge of, I felt entirely incapable of proffering my opinion and having it be adequate. As a result, when fashion was discussed I agreed with the general consensus. Luckily, having talked over fashion for years among themselves, my friends all had a very similar opinion in regards to fashion. As such, I did not have to pick what side I wanted to align myself with, as all sides were in consensus. This extended over to when we went shopping together. Incapable of distinguishing good fashion from bad fashion, I agreed with whatever they said looked good on me and what did not, regardless of what I felt. Interestingly, I internalized their opinions and carried them with me for a long time. Years after being exposed to their fashion opinions, I went shopping with my boyfriend. I tried on a pair of shorts and immediately commented that the pockets were too high. He said that he enjoyed high pockets and I stared at him in disbelief and said "but...but EVERYONE knows that high pockets are bad!"

 This example of conforming to the group's opinion and the perseverance of this opinion is demonstrated very clearly in a study conducted by Sherif in 1936. Sherif had individuals estimate how much a point of light moved in an otherwise pitch black room. The light, however, never moved. What the participants were experiencing was the autokinetic effect; that is, in a dark room a light will appear to move around. When placed in a group and asked to estimate how much the light moved, participants gravitated towards a mean consensus of how far the light moved, rather than holding on to their initial guesses. In addition to establishing in-group norms, participants continued to hold onto those norms even when tested individually later on. Similarly, I adapted to the group norms and upheld those beliefs in the absence of the group!

There was a time when the group agreed
that I should be more androgynous. I had no opinion.

The other reason people conform, for normative influence, is a result of people not wanting to deviate from other members of the group. While this is the reason I most often conform, I do not have as many interesting examples! However, for Christmas my family all received "redneck tank tops"; that is, underwear with a headhole cut into them. My parents wanted a picture of all of my siblings wearing this gift to put on the internet. I was (understandably) opposed to this idea. However, my parents pulled out their cameras and my other siblings lined up for the photo. However, science says that if I were to be excluded from a group activity I would experience many physically painful symptoms associated with rejection (Williams et al., 2002). Therefore, I conformed to a behaviour I would not have otherwise displayed. It is important to note that my parents or siblings at no point asked or commanded me to take this picture; the picture assembly was a tacit understand that I nevertheless conformed to.

At least one of us did not want to be in this picture.

Crutchfield, R. S. (1955). Conformity and character. American Psychologist, 54, 821-827.

Deutsch, M., & Gerard, H. B. (19955). A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgment. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51, 629-636.

Sherif, M. (1936). The psychology of social norms. New York: Harper.

Williams, K. D., Govan, C. L., Croker, V., Tynan, D., Cruikshank, M., & Lam, A. (2002). Investigations into differences between social- and cyberostracism. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 6, 65-77.