Sociological Aspects of Conformity Research Paper

1. Conformity, Similarity, And Dissimilarity

Conformity depends directly on the degree of similarity between an individual action and another, those actions being more or less frequent in a group. Tarde (1962) tries to stress the importance of imitation to explain such similar behaviors in social life. Imitation appears to him as a constant attitude which explains all social phenomena: all fields of action are involved, and innovation, or dissent, depends always on previous imitations. But imitation has such general contents that it is not very useful to explain the peculiarities of different situations. Durkheim (1982) does not accept this rather general idea of imitation. But for him, there is a similar strong social tendency toward the building of common patterns of behavior: moral, religious, linguistic, or esthetic rules express in a common way the fact that society is built up on the necessity of integration of individuals throughout shared values. Despite any subsequent difference of attitudes, conformity is an essential feature of society.

More or less supported by explicit values, or norms, conformity is strengthened by unequally strong rewards and sanctions. From death penalty to intellectual dissatisfaction, from imprisonment to snobbery, conformity is most often reinforced by social actions in different ways. But it is also observable that conformity can occur when no sanction at all is observable, for instance, people’s breakfast habits, which differ from one society to another, this difference being related to a group attitude.

Moreover, when there is a claim to conformity, and sanctions (or rewards) towards potential conformists or deviants, the size of the reference group can have a variable extension (Mead 1962): for a Catholic, or a believer in human rights, humanity as such should comply with some specific norms, whereas the follower of an elitist fashion will stop liking it when the number of followers has reached a certain size (Coleman 1990).

Conformity is related to beliefs and to justifications: people are conformist or deviant because they believe they should be so, and others are asked to behave in the same manner when they are thought to belong to the relevant group to which the norm that introduces conformity should apply. Therefore, a study of the conformity problem must include the motives for which a justification is accepted or rejected. People can obey a norm because they believe the norm is valid, or because they are forced to comply with it. But they can refuse to obey a norm not because they do not acknowledge the validity of the norm, but because they have a stronger interest against conformity. On the other hand, people can refuse to obey a norm because they believe it is unfair, or useless, or un- necessary, or inadequate.

Compliance with similar patterns of behavior can be related to personal or group circumstances: people may think that a norm is illegitimate from the point of view of their position in society. For instance, those who cannot through their personal effort achieve a social promotion, will tend to believe that, since they do not have such opportunity, they cannot have any faith in a social order that builds its legitimacy on this very self-promotion through effort (Merton 1957). Those conditions can be related to the position of an individual within a group, or to the members of a group within a larger group. Finally, there is a problem of comparison among completely different groups when it appears that they have completely different systems of values.

Because of this wide variety of situations, it seems difficult to accept only one general trend towards conformity or deviance, whether it should be located at an individual level (imitation) or at a social level (social integration). It is more promising to distinguish several fields where the conformity issue can be described in significantly different ways.

2. Positive Beliefs

A first domain for conformist attitudes is that of positive beliefs. In this field there is a strong claim to conformity when there are epistemic norms that are recognized from a universal point of view. If there is a norm of validity for the description of a fact, or a set of facts, it is not surprising that rational people will acknowledge the evidence regarding this norm. Conformity has no negative connotation in this case. For sociologists, who believe in science and the validity of their academic enterprise, it would be difficult, and arguably inconsistent, not to believe in such a norm. Subsequently, they will be interested, regarding positive descriptions and beliefs commonly shared by people, in the frequency of typical errors. The sociologist has many devices to explain such widely spread errors.

Tocqueville (1966), for instance, explains that people need general ideas to achieve their ordinary actions, but they do not have the means to verify the validity of all the beliefs they will refer to. In a society based on the dismissal of all authority, the majority of people will think that the most acceptable belief is the one that is commonly shared by others. There will be a tendency towards conformity since the adoption of majority’s voice is less costly, both from an intellectual point of view and from a social point of view. Boudon (1990) has studied various ways social errors are built up on a rational basis.

3. Social Rules In Moral, Political, And Religious Fields

As previously mentioned, conformity implies a problem of legitimacy. There are strong social norms regarding social practices in moral, political, and religious fields. These norms tend to vary in a significant way from one society to another, and there is a historical evolution that must be taken into account. Sociologists can consider that this variety must lead to a complete relativity of values. But they can try also to pay attention to the reasons that lead to the acceptance or to the refusal of norms.

First of all, it seems that there are four relatively constant norms throughout all cultures (Cusson 1983): incest between mother and son, father and daughter, or brother and sister; rape of married women; murder, meaning the voluntary act of killing someone who belongs to one’s own group; theft. Of course, the last case is the less accurate since the definition of legitimate belongings can vary in such a way that property itself can be seen as a theft.

If we depart from those universal features, labeling theorists (Becker 1963) interpret conformity as the result of a power relationship: the powerful impose on others conventions that are arbitrary. Arbitrary conventions have two effects. First, some people are labeled as deviants whereas others are praised as conformists. This expresses the structure of power in society, certainly not an intrinsic validity. Second, once people have been labeled as deviant, this label reinforces by stigmatization their deviant situation, since others can no more accept them as nondeviants. This narrows the range of actions that are available to them; eventually the stigmatized can themselves believe that they are deviants.

It is obvious that two situations can frequently appear. Some people tend to impose on others a norm that cannot be valid to them, and depend only on a power relationship. For instance, it is clear that a racist norm can hardly be seen as legitimate by its victims, since it has no other ground than the relation of power. But on the other hand, people tend to impose norms that they try to legitimize. The claim of the stigmatized must necessarily be a change of norm, that is, the replacement of a nonvalid norm by a valid one. For instance, critics of racism will support the idea that there is no legitimate ground for racism, and they will try to set up a norm against racism: if they succeed, racists will become deviants. If labeling theorists maintain the idea that there is never any intrinsic value to certain rules, they will have no basis for the replacement of a racist rule by a nonracist rule, and they will treat in the same manner the deviant who does not accept a prevailing racist norm and the deviant who does not accept a prevailing nonracist norm.

Therefore, historical evolution must be taken into account as it can be related to the relative strength of different arguments regarding norms. If we consider, for instance, norms regulating sexual behavior, Christian religious belief tends to condemn, on a metaphysical basis, premarital sex, divorce, homo-sexuality, and pedophilia altogether. In a society where people are submitted to such norms, if they do not share the religious beliefs, they might consider them-selves as victims of arbitrary norms. In such an instance they might believe that they have a right to do whatever they wish to do, in spite of those forbidding norms. It can be noticed, therefore, that when there is no consensus on religious norms for sexual behavior, the only path to maintain a legitimate norm that will be valid for everyone will be to accept the principle of personal choice. Religious people will act according to their choice, and the nonreligious to their other choice. Modern societies increase the principle of personal choice, and diminish the authority of traditional or religious norms. The evolution is significant: divorce tends to be widely practiced, and homosexuality is increasingly legalized. But one significant aspect of this evolution is that norms against pedophilia tend on the opposite to be strengthened in a liberal society. This is easy to explain, on one side, divorce or homosexuality are related to a freedom of choice among consenting partners. If a marriage is a contract between two adult persons, the notion of agreement can imply that the contract should be dismissed if the two partners do not agree any more, even if this is considered to be a failure from another point of view. On the contrary, pedophilia is definitely rejected because it involves children, legitimately seen as victims because of their lack of free choice.

Therefore it cannot be said that a labeling theory is the last word on the problem of conformity or deviance. Both depend on beliefs and possibilities of legitimacy. In other words, norms depend on reasons (Boudon 1990). In this case, if strong norms depend on religious beliefs, when they are imposed on others who are nonbelievers, there is a problem of legitimacy if those beliefs cannot be proved to be right or wrong. Therefore, rationalization will tend to lead to a situation where such norms will apply only to believers. In this case, the principle of choice tends to legalize some practices, and to reinforce the fact that others are forbidden.

According to Boudon’s latest works, we can try to find the reasons for the acceptance or the rejection of a norm. Dissatisfaction can occur when there is a rejection of the elements on which the norm is based, or when the norm can be seen as valid in general, but not in the situation where the actors find themselves. Once again, according to Merton’s description, some-one will tend to reject a social order based on the idea of self-promotion through effort when it cannot be really achieved. Here a problem of consistency is faced: the norm is valid under certain conditions, but ceases to be so when those conditions are not met.

Hence, conformity should not be seen as static. Many norms depend on beliefs that are submitted to rationalization. One of the aspects of this rationalization is that some norms cannot be valid to certain people: for instance, if there is a norm supporting slavery, it will tend to be withdrawn in the long run since it is inconsistent with the source of any legitimacy for individuals, their ability to accept a norm, which implies a certain amount of freedom of choice. Some norms are seen as oppressive which were not before, because the belief on which they were based is no longer shared.

From a rationalistic point of view, there can be a discussion that shows that conformity or deviance depend on the perception of the validity of norms. It can be said that norms tend to be rejected in four major cases: when they just express a power relation-ship that is disguised in some other value; when they are grounded on false beliefs; when they are grounded on beliefs that cannot be proved and which have no self-evidence—in this case, they cannot be imposed on someone who does not share such beliefs; finally, a norm is not valid when it cannot be applied to someone’s situation.

4. Norms Of Culture

In the two previous sections, I have tried to isolate norms that can be discussed among people from the standpoint of their validity. But there are other norms that are connected to strong conformity that do not seem to be negotiated in terms of validity. For instance, Japanese women tend to walk in a way significantly different from European women. On one hand, there is no obvious reason to consider one way as better than the other; on the other hand, such behaviors express conformity, since they are group behaviors. How should we give an account of such attitudes applied to food, language, dress, architectural habits, etc.?

Three major elements can be stressed regarding this type of conformity. First, it can be related to practical constraints. A language must be shared among people to be efficient for communication. Here, conformity is just the result of the nature of the practice. There cannot be a private language ( Wittgenstein 1967).

Second, similarity can express integration to a group. For instance, it is obvious that religious dress is linked to the sense of belonging to a community which can be turned into strategic devices. People tend to adopt some features to show that they belong to certain groups (Simmel 1923). This can be done because belonging to a group is seen as important, or because belonging to a group is a consequence of a common faith or a common goal, or because there is some sort of distinction that is looked for (Veblen 1953).

But finally, it must be said that in these fields conformity tends to be linked to innovation. It is obvious in the esthetic field: on the one hand, there is a huge amount of conformity, that is observable in the constituency of local schools, such as the general use of Romanesque architecture during certain periods in Europe. This conformity, however, does not exclude innovation; Gothic style sooner or later replaces the Romanesque. It would be too difficult in this research paper to assess all the elements that play a role in such an evolution. It is clear at least that the previous ones are important: interactive constraints, and the sense of belonging to a community. But these allow the evolution of behaviors and the place for innovation.

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