conformity

When thinking about conforming I had a different idea than what has been graciously taught to us in social psychology. My concept of conforming was all negative and led to much unified groups such as a clique in high school. Now I have learned that conforming doesn’t necessarily have to be trying to fit in it can also be because you think people know information that you are not aware of. This is formally known as information social influence. After learning about this type of conformity I saw it everywhere! An example in which I was guilty of information social influence consisted of the JMU bus system. The apartment complex that I live in has two buses that pick people up from Godwin, bus seven and bus thirteen. On the bus schedule the two buses come at different times, one obviously coming before the other. When walking to Godwin to catch my bus home after a long day of classes I am never sure which bus stop I will be standing at. The stop with the majority of people is where I end up going because I think in my head that all of those other people must know which bus is coming first. There is definitely some normative social influence happening here because I don’t want to be that one girl that is out of place. It is funny to me that even the bus drivers are conforming in this situation. If all of the students are standing at bus seven stop and bus thirteen comes the bus driver will switch his number on his bus and pull up to bus seven stop. Conformity doesn’t have to be following the crowd because of a weak personality but rather because the majority of people have the same idea and it could potentially be a more effective method.