As I was preparing for the final exam for my master’s degree, I realised that for the last 25 years of my life, I had spent 21 of them receiving formal education.
This is interesting because lately, I’ve been thinking of conformity and what influences it.
From a social perspective, conformity is a form of social influence. As the name implies, social influence is how others influence our behaviours, thoughts and feelings.
However, while there are different forms of social influence, I focus on conformity and its role.
Conformity
One of the critical things about conformity is that it leads to a change in behaviour or belief based on a person’s perception of what other people within a group believe or do. In the broad sense, there are three primary forms:
compliance
- temporarily changing your behaviour to gain favour from another person or group without necessarily changing your beliefs.identification
- often described as group membership, that is, changing your behaviour to fit in with a group you belong to because you value being a member.internalisation
- at the peak, genuinely accepting the group norms, and it’s not only reflected in your public behaviour but also becomes one of your values. It is truly believing in the behaviour you’ve adopted.
At the point of internalisation, it becomes difficult to revert to a previous form, be it behaviour, attitude or way of being. And I think schooling for many years brings many people to this level. The more years you spend in that system, the greater the chances of conforming to and internalising the schooling standards.
Schooling
I think some of the apparent aims of schooling are to impart knowledge and develop skills. But we learn more than that in schools, especially with how the traditional school is structured. In fact, I believe that a significant thing our schools teach us is how to conform more than anything else.
While most of these are learned implicitly, they nonetheless go on to shape how we interact with the world. Here are two significant implicit learnings that stand out for me.
Testing
There is a standardised way of testing if knowledge has indeed been acquired, and while we’ve seen some changes here and there, the traditional format requires you to become adept at remembering what has been taught. And the way most people go through this is by rote learning. Because when you’re tested in some cases, it is more important to be able to answer in a structured way (more like regurgitating) than actually knowing the usefulness of the subject matter.
Students learn that checking boxes that confirm that a curriculum has been covered is more important than being able to apply knowledge in valuable ways that contribute to society.Rules
A strict code of conduct is instilled in schools. And these codes meant to ensure students behave well within the school environments are simplified formats of the rules that guide organisations and groups in the larger social world.
So, it really is connected. After going through school, there are certain expectations we start to expect from the world about how it should work. However, in many cases, those who are genuinely rewarded are those who do not conform to these rules.
Both of these things can take different forms, and I believe that since the ultimate form of conformity is internalisation, the longer time spent in school, the higher the likelihood of internalising these learnings in virtually all aspects of one’s life.
The process: from “schooled” to “conformed”
Many people start curious. How do we know this? Well, look at kids. They learn about the world by being curious. They ask questions and try things.
Now compare with an average adult. We accept the world as it is and find a way to work with the cards we’ve been dealt while trying not to shake things around too much that we are punished for it. And these punishments are real because they can lead to pain and loss. This is how the world we’ve built works, and it makes sense that we learn to operate within those bounds, right?
Not really. If you look closely enough, there are boundaries but not the ones we think; those don’t exist. Instead, we see an idea we’ve been conditioned to expect, and the conditioning happens between childhood and adulthood.
So what happens between those two periods in one’s life? Well, school.
The average person who went to university for a 4-year course immediately after secondary education (without any break), would have spent about 17 years in school by the age of 23.
That’s not trivial.
During childhood, the brain forms new connections and learns how the world works. Whatever connection is formed becomes the foundation on which the adult builds their life view and interacts with the world.
However, given the rigid system schooling imposes, you can imagine how this can translate into faulty foundations. If you observe many adults today, you will not look far before noticing that many:
are complacent
accept the status quo
lack critical thinking ability
cower to perceived authority.
Obviously, many factors will affect how these characteristics become part of a person, such as religion, family and other groups. For instance, religion plays a role in submission to perceived authority. Still, the focus here is on the traditional school system, given the almost-instant feedback it gives when authority figures are questioned, or any rules are broken.
Bringing it together
We all start out curious about the world
A flawed system is used as the basis
We comply with implicit rules for a short-term reprieve
We learn the long-term benefits of belonging and accepting
We internalise these lessons to survive
Becoming the adults we should be
The world operates on some rigid rules that are not rewarding because they don’t always produce the best result that gets us where we want to be. But this is the design we’ve become used to. We’ve learned to conform to the standards that allow us to fit into a model that our social groups recognise and accept.
But being a conformed group member with no sense of personal agency defeats the point of being an individual. Because in its most basic sense, an individual is unique and can think for themselves. They assimilate life lessons and use them to improve their own reality.
And that is the adults we should be.
It may sound trite, but the most effective way I have found to become an adult that exists in a form fit to succeed in this rigid world is by rediscovering our childlike curiosity.
Conformity robs us of our sense of individuality, which involves thinking critically and having a sense of autonomy and self-agency. Rediscovering a curiosity about the world will enable us to see the world as fluid as it really is. Most things are not set in stone, regardless of how they look.
Once you reopen that door, your world changes. You reimagine problems and challenges and approach them in a more creative and rule-breaking way that actually produces results. And it makes your experience much more rewarding.
Yea. We should think more outside the box. Exit the Matrix. Quit the rat race. Therein lies greatness.