I need help responding to this discussion board by Emmanuelle,

This past week, a time in which I noticed that I conformed to the behaviors of others was at work. Work started up again this past Monday, at which point I learned from a supervisor that on Saturdays, people at my job tended to dress in much fancier clothes than casual work attire. In general, I do not dress very fancily, so dressing nicely for work at all is kind of an act of conformity because I feel so out of place when I'm not wearing casual clothes. I felt extra strange when I conformed by wearing outright fancy clothes on Saturday as well, so that I would fit in with everyone else at work. In fact, even though I was really hot at some points throughout the day, I didn't take off my blazer because I was worried that I would not appear formal enough to conform with everyone else's attire. I think in this example, normative influence, which "leads people to conform because they fear the consequence of rejection that follows deviance" (Kassin, Fein, Markus, & Brehm, 2021).

An instance of conformity on the part of others that I observed during this past week was on the part of my coworker, who said that they liked sushi because everyone else in the office was talking about how much they love sushi. However, I know this person outside of work, and I am well aware that this person absolutely hates sushi and fish. I thought it was strange that she chose to lie and conform like that just to fit into a group. It got worse, though. The office decided to order sushi for dinner, and so my friend ended up being put in a position where she had to order sushi, and I could tell it was awkward for her because she was having to spend money on something she didn't want, just because she initially conformed, perhaps without really thinking too much about it. The situation reminded me of how even small acts of conformity, compliance, or obedience can have consequences that we may not initially anticipate when we engage in the initial act.

A notable time that I resisted the social influence pressures exerted by others was also at work. My boss made a comment about a Palestinian protest that happened in the city last week and frankly I found it to be a little out of touch with fact as well as discriminatory. Though I respect the many different takes and opinions around the complex conflict that's currently unfolding between Israel and Hamas, I could not help but feel that her comment was not only out of touch, but also very much out of place in a workplace environment; not only was it discriminatory, but it made light of an extremely controversial issue. This is what lead me to not laugh at what she said even though the other people in the room (who were all also my superiors) laughed. For a moment I wondered if I was making the wrong choice by not laughing, because in a way it felt like I was going against the social impulse to conform to the social norm that had been established in that microcosm, which was to respond to my boss's prompt with laughter. Though I was nervous about it, I chose to stand my ground and not conform to the laughter. My boss noticed my lack of conformity and singled me out, which initially made me really nervous because I felt like I was going to be punished for resisting the social influence, but she actually ended up apologizing not only to me, but to the entire group for what she said, and I feel like she wouldn't have bothered had I not responded in the way that I did. I could tell that she was making an effort to be really nice to me throughout the rest of that day, and to be honest, it made me even more uncomfortable. However, I was glad that I stood by my moral convictions and didn't just go with the flow in the face of discrimination.

An instance of non-conformity that I observed in another person's resistance to social influence happened to my partner yesterday. He was telling me that at work, he and all the rest of the teachers were having to make proposals for 2-week-long study abroad trips that the teachers must design for their students. Even though it sounds cool, these trips tend to be poorly organized and supervised, and my partner really hates having to go on them because time and time again he gets poorly treated by students and their parents when these trips occur. So, as my partner watched all these other teachers doing their presentations, he thought to himself "I'm not going to debase myself like this again", so when it was his turn, my partner passed the mic directly down the line to another teacher and walked off stage. He did that because he didn't like seeing adults bend down to the "wealthy, snotty children" for whom he works. Though he was worried about receiving a reprimand from his administrators, he didn't care, because he was taking a stand. Beyond his personal reasons for not wanting to conform, he also was trying to make a point so that they would let him stay on campus to remotely monitor and manage all the other concurrent study abroad trips, which somehow, no one else has ever done over all the years that that study abroad program has been in existence.

References:

Kassin, S. M., Fein, S., Markus, H. R., & Brehm, S. S. (2021). Social Psychology (11th edition). Cengage Learning.