Psychology

Psychological Issues of Conformity
Conformity can be defined as away of influencing people to fit in a given group of the society. The society has been characterized by different groups with different practices, believes and social norms. The desire for man to belong to any of these groups of the society has been an inevitable subconscious need and the extent to which somebody accepts this practices indicates hisher desire to belong to that group. With this diverse existence of the society, a controversy a rises on whether somebody can maintain hisher principals and individuality or he has to adhere to the needs and practices of that particular group to fit. This controversy has led to grouping of the society into two categories namely conformist for the former and non conformist for the latter (Greene, Burleson, 2003). It should be noted here that different people conform due to different reasons top on the list been group pressure and fear to be rejected by the group. This is evident among teenagers who conform to drug taking and robbery to impress there core members. This is normally achieved through criticism, persuasion and threatening by the fellow members of the group. Lack of knowledge or ambiguity of something and a person seeking advice and confirmation of the same or the desire to gain favors like social rewards can contribute to conformation.

Non conformist will take there own course deliberately by insisting on there individuality and rejecting all or a few of the group practices due to behavioral independency or rejection of the groups norm due to influence by others as it happens to children rejecting their families due to peer pressure. With this broad view of conformity, it has to be appreciated that its impact to the society particularly the teenagers can be positive or negative depending on the driving force and the social practices carried out by the groups (Rook, 2006). It is in this interest that this paper is written. The author in particular focuses on the analysis of conformity and its impact to the teenagers.

It is worthy noting here that teenagers are venerable to changes in the society. As they go through this stage of life thy are required to gain enough knowledge, social values and skills necessary for their adulthood however, it is during this stage that thy are venerable to temptations of youth norms that consumes much of their energy and time from education and at worst from their moral and ethical values. This results into poor performance in academics and conformity to practices and social behaviors of certain groups in the society therefore rejecting their families ways of life and guidance (Jahoda, 1999). It is therefore during this phase of growth that teenagers lay a foundation for their future with the experience gain being translated directly or indirectly to a career success and bright future or a future of rebellion and wrong doing.

Peer pressure is a key factor beside conformity among teenagers. Scientific studies have shown that the nature and extend of its influence affects their behavior and altitude towards life. The main areas of influence include but not limited to drug abuse, sexuality and dating attitudes. Within this context, it can be seen that teenagers can be their own enemy for their life if they give in for the negative aspects of the same and deviate from the good societal morals and ethics. The pervasiveness of peer pressure has been compounded by the media and modern methods of communication and networking systems. This has increased conformity among teenagers with disregard of methods that promote morality, ethics and good health (Baum, Singer, 2001). This has been evidenced by the increased use of drugs and existence of rebellious groups with malicious intentions such as robbery and killing.
Curiosity has confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt to be another driving force for conformity among the teenagers. It makes teenagers to look, explore and act in such a manner that he fits in a given group or enjoys the privileges associated with them. The exaggerated adverts for drugs such as cigarettes and alcohol as well as sexuality taps the high curiosity among the teenagers and results into far reaching consequences such as pregnancy and drug addiction.

It is depicted clearly that teenagers are facing serious challenges due to conformity and this is manifested by the confusion brought by the varying pressures that impinges on them. This imposes a great challenge to them as they realize that there is much more to learn in life than the learning done in class. Thus, controversy arises as they strain to get more outside the school than in the school because it is more of a fun than a necessity. This has resulted to lack of interest in reading activities and with the increased pressure to excel in other school activities, more failures and school drop outs result (Martino, Chiarolli, 2003). With history on my side and by the principles of reasoning, a nations future relies on the number of the educated adult individuals if then this school drop out continuous, the nations future will be doomed.

Competition among teenagers has proved to be another effective course of conformity particularly in school where they meet from diverse back grounds. It has been a mans desire to be the best in almost every thing he under takes. With this in mind and given that students cannot fair equally in their different subjects, then some kind of strain sets up. If then a student is week to accept this inevitable principle of nature, then a feeling of inferiority complex develops and this has been established by scientific researchers as a strong ingredient for depression and at its worst failure. If this critical stage is reached then, a student can infest much of hisher time in trying to identify the good qualities with their competitors that makes them excel in that particular field. Unfortunately, the competitors may be using some drugs take for instance cigarettes or may be coming from a more stable family (Rook, 2006). If then if this happens to be the case then, our week student engage in smoking in order to  excel in that particular activity or even start stealing to get more money and enjoy similar privileges as their competitors. Habit is next to nature they say and this becomes true with time as the week student gets addicted and realizes that the trick behide their competitors success was not all what he was doing but just an issue o extra hard working. This puts him in another demand and the results become worse than before.

This important phase of life has been marked with an introduction and appreciation of the existence of the members of the opposite sex. Early dating and the need to be loved or have close relations with members of the opposite sex cannot be ignored because significant results or even worse frustrations in the future life can emerge. The social skills necessary to communicate effectively with members of the society are learned during these times. It has been proved that teenagers can do almost every thing to draw the attentions of the members of the opposite sex. This is characterized by strong bodies which appear to be a show of strength and capabilities to protect their loved ones and influence them to adhere to their demands (Lounsbury, 2007). For the boys, it is achieved through lifting of heavy weights and performing other strong exercises while in girls it is achieved through indecent dressings and loyalty to their friends of the opposite sex. All this activities can be more time  and energy consuming than their studies and can lead to development of vices such bullying of fellow students, involvement in drug taking ,premature sex and at worse school drop out.

Scientific research has shown that is a process characterized by different stages with different needs and demand. A notable need is that of independence and its origin can be traced back from the teenage phase. It is during this stage that our good boys and girls seek independence in various things including and not limited to private bed rooms, private beds and unique dressing codes. At this stages, parents seem to have hard live with their children and if they are not wise enough to realize that conformity can have resulted to this, then they will deny their children that chance (David, 2003). An inward sort of confusion is crated in the child if they are not strong enough to listen to their parents. This is due to the fact that the child might be getting some kind of criticism from the members of the groups they want to be therefore feeling lonely and rejected and on the other side, the parents are not willing to adhere to this because it probably seems premature. This is a very critical state because any miss understanding between the parents and the child can amount to conflict which may be carried forward to the future. The types of conflict include but not limited to running away from home or being rude to the parents. As it can be seen, this contradicts most wishes of a happy family.

Conformity does not always result to bad habits but can also be used deliberately used to reshape and refocus teenagers and people at large who have already been involved in this bad habits or have been week to meet certain qualifications of the good society. Experience has shown cases where poor students have improved much due conforming to the best students ways of life. These good practices include punctuality, and good reading habits (Baum, Singer, 2001).

In addiction to this, a drug addict can be influenced to quit the habit by conforming to the good social lives of the non drug abusers. Taking an example of cigarettes smoking, the desire to join a non smoking group should be marked by quitting. This is a good health practice and should be underscored as an outcome of conformity.

With these two possible results of conformity, then deciding which groups norms to conform becomes the biggest challenge and a source of stress among the teenagers. Accepting to be a member of a group whose values contradicts the morals and ethics of the good society, then the out came will be negative and the consequences may be hard to pay. Similarly, utilizing certain group of the society with practice and values more or less to the ones you demand and whish to be can be a source of motivation to do marvelous things which could have been impossible otherwise (Jahoda, 1999).

From the above discussion therefore, it can be concluded that conformity among the teenagers is a critical issue with a two fold outcome. Depending on how it is utilized, it can result to significant future which could have not been obtained if it where not for the influence of the society or at its worst can result to a doomed future if teenagers are influenced to practice bad habits such as drug abuse.