The Parklife Conformer...

While studying for our exam last week I found myself reflecting on the notion of our need to belong and the lengths that we will go to achieve a sense on belonging to a group. The idea of conformity and the Asch experiments was particularly interesting because on initial reflection I viewed the people who had conformed as silly and thought that in a similar situation I would definately have gone against the crowd. Thinking about this further, I wondered, Would I really?

In the weeks leading up to Parklife (a dance festival a few weeks ago) I remember having a conversation with a friend about how there was no way i was going to follow the developing trend of wearing bright fluoro colours and silly headbands etc. just to 'fit in' at the festival. But as thew day drew closer and all my friends were involved in shopping for their crazy fluoro outfits and accessories I began to feel I was going to be on the outer. My need to belong, not to the crowd as a whole, but to my close friendship group was beginning to take over. Sure enough in the days leading up to the event I had bought fluoro paints, a number of shirts, crazy bright red sunnies and some lovely green tights. I had officially succomed to my need to belong, all of a sudden felt deindividualised, and then gone a step further top make myself different again. I ended up being the brightest of the group, butI had a great day, and I didn't have to think about not belinging to the group... The things we do to belong.

I think examples like this one from my life are the reason this course has been so interesting. almost all of the theories we had explored are so easily applied to everyday life. Even those that I though other people might do, but not neccissarily me. It seems I'm a huge conformist like the rest of us...