As I was thinking about what to speak to you this morning, one word leapt out at me – CONFORMITY. Conformity starts when we are really small. We are born into a world, find ourselves in a family and the culture of that family begins to mold us and shape us and the things that are within us get shaped by the things that are outside of us. Then we take that shaping and go to a school and we find that the school has a culture of its own – the people, the staff, the teachers. We find that there’s need to conform in that environment as well.
Then we go to college and find that college has a culture of its own and even that shapes us. Finally we find ourselves working in an office and where there too there is a corporate culture. Then we get married and our spouses too bring a particular culture and there’s a need to conform.
Thinking about that, I wondered how good was it to conform. How good is it to change? Do we conform even when we don’t need to? Do we eventually become people that we are not or are not supposed to be? I realized that to conform or not – that is the question that faces all of us.
We go into our office settings and bring different strengths and talents to the table. Then you may find that there are different forces that play on you and make you need to conform. Some of them are good. For e.g., in your organization, the culture determined by the vision, where does the company want to go; the mission, how it is going to get there; the core values of the company which are the non-negotiables or the building blocks which help you get there.
Yet sometimes we find that to get acceptance into our world, especially in office spaces, there’s a need to conform. That was intriguing for me. Where does it start, how does it begin? What are the important things that we need to understand about this word - conformity.
I heard a song many years ago written by Harry Chapin who tells stories in his songs. This song was based on a report card that either his son, or one of his band member’s sons, brought home. The teacher’s comment in the card said, “Your son is a different kind of drummer. But don’t worry. We’ll have him joining the parade by the end of the term. Harry Chapin was so caught up with the comment that he wrote this song which I will read to you.
Conformity – doing and being the person that you were not meant to be or you shouldn’t be; but being crowded out to conform, to be like everybody else, a ‘cookie-cutter’ generation.
I was looking at an article ‘Social Conformity starts in the Brain’ and Dr. Vasily Klucharev from the F.C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging in the Netherlands says that after much study has been done, people develop what they call a ‘prediction error’. The prediction error is something that the brain kicks in when it responds to reinforced learning behavior or models that have happened throughout the person’s life. And after some time, anytime you’re going to be a little out of sync with expected norms and you sense it, automatically there is a desire in you to conform. He says, “Our results also show that social conformity is based on mechanisms that comply with reinforcement learning and is reinforced by the neural error monitoring activity which signals what is probably the most fundamental social mistake: that of being too different from others.” After some time our brain begins to kick in and let us know when we are going to stand out in a crowd.
Social psychologist Solomon Asch, famous for conducting “The Asch Conformity Experiments” the aim of which was to determine whether social pressure could cause a person to say something that was obviously wrong in the presence of other conformists. He had 20 people in a group, 18 of them knew what they had to do, 2 of them didn’t. They were shown 3 lines of different lengths. Then they were shown another line and the 2 who were not privy to the experiment, were asked to match the line to the earlier 3 lines. The experiment showed that every time the 18 went before and made a wrong choice, 19 and 20 would follow that choice, because they wanted to conform. Yet if it was a written test, t hen they chose the right one. Results showed that test subjects deliberately showed incorrect answers as they wanted to conform and did not want to be different. They wanted to fit in.
Isn’t it sad that the world sometimes makes us do that? People around also could sometimes impinge upon who we are.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
If you are in a place where you are being somebody who you are not, you’re doing things that you know you would never do otherwise, or saying things that are not part of your behavior, it can rob you, drain your energy and zest for life or even kill your initiative.
Out of the Bible comes the line (Romans 12:2) that says, “Do not conform to the world but be renewed in your mind with the purposes of God.”
God made each one of us uniquely. There is no other you in this whole world. You bring to the table unique gifts and talents. Maybe till now you have been aligning with the general views of people. Maybe today is the day for you to say, “I’m unique. There is no other me.” Maybe today is also the time when other people need to hear what you bring to the table. Don’t play safe. Maybe the world needs to hear you this morning.
God Bless You All.
Then we go to college and find that college has a culture of its own and even that shapes us. Finally we find ourselves working in an office and where there too there is a corporate culture. Then we get married and our spouses too bring a particular culture and there’s a need to conform.
Thinking about that, I wondered how good was it to conform. How good is it to change? Do we conform even when we don’t need to? Do we eventually become people that we are not or are not supposed to be? I realized that to conform or not – that is the question that faces all of us.
We go into our office settings and bring different strengths and talents to the table. Then you may find that there are different forces that play on you and make you need to conform. Some of them are good. For e.g., in your organization, the culture determined by the vision, where does the company want to go; the mission, how it is going to get there; the core values of the company which are the non-negotiables or the building blocks which help you get there.
Yet sometimes we find that to get acceptance into our world, especially in office spaces, there’s a need to conform. That was intriguing for me. Where does it start, how does it begin? What are the important things that we need to understand about this word - conformity.
I heard a song many years ago written by Harry Chapin who tells stories in his songs. This song was based on a report card that either his son, or one of his band member’s sons, brought home. The teacher’s comment in the card said, “Your son is a different kind of drummer. But don’t worry. We’ll have him joining the parade by the end of the term. Harry Chapin was so caught up with the comment that he wrote this song which I will read to you.
The little boy went first day of school, he got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper, for colors were what he saw.
And the teacher said, “What are you doing young man?” “I’m painting flowers”, he said
She said, “It’s not time for art, and anyway flowers are green and red.
There’s a time for everything young man and a way it should be done.
You’ve got to show concern for everyone else, for you’re not the only one.
And she said, “Flowers are red, young man, green leaves are green,
There’s no need to see flowers any other way than the way they always have been seen,”
But little boy said, “There are so many colors in the rainbow,
So many colors in the morning sun,
So many colors in the flower, and I see every one.”
Well the teacher said, “You’re sassy, there’s ways that things should be
And you’ll paint flowers the way they are, so repeat after me
Flowers are red, young man, green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way than the way they always have been seen.”
But the little boy said, “There are so many colors in the rainbow, so many colors in the sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one.”
The teacher put him in a corner; she said “it’s for your own good
And you won’t come out till you get it right and all responding like you should.”
Well finally he got lonely, frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to the teacher and this is what he said.
Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way than the way they always have been seen
Time went by like it always does and they moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school and this is what he found
The teacher there was smiling; she said painting should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower, so let’s use every one.
But that little boy painted flowers in neat rows of green and red
And when the teacher asked him why, this is what he said
Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way than the way they always have been seen.
Conformity – doing and being the person that you were not meant to be or you shouldn’t be; but being crowded out to conform, to be like everybody else, a ‘cookie-cutter’ generation.
I was looking at an article ‘Social Conformity starts in the Brain’ and Dr. Vasily Klucharev from the F.C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging in the Netherlands says that after much study has been done, people develop what they call a ‘prediction error’. The prediction error is something that the brain kicks in when it responds to reinforced learning behavior or models that have happened throughout the person’s life. And after some time, anytime you’re going to be a little out of sync with expected norms and you sense it, automatically there is a desire in you to conform. He says, “Our results also show that social conformity is based on mechanisms that comply with reinforcement learning and is reinforced by the neural error monitoring activity which signals what is probably the most fundamental social mistake: that of being too different from others.” After some time our brain begins to kick in and let us know when we are going to stand out in a crowd.
Social psychologist Solomon Asch, famous for conducting “The Asch Conformity Experiments” the aim of which was to determine whether social pressure could cause a person to say something that was obviously wrong in the presence of other conformists. He had 20 people in a group, 18 of them knew what they had to do, 2 of them didn’t. They were shown 3 lines of different lengths. Then they were shown another line and the 2 who were not privy to the experiment, were asked to match the line to the earlier 3 lines. The experiment showed that every time the 18 went before and made a wrong choice, 19 and 20 would follow that choice, because they wanted to conform. Yet if it was a written test, t hen they chose the right one. Results showed that test subjects deliberately showed incorrect answers as they wanted to conform and did not want to be different. They wanted to fit in.
Isn’t it sad that the world sometimes makes us do that? People around also could sometimes impinge upon who we are.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
If you are in a place where you are being somebody who you are not, you’re doing things that you know you would never do otherwise, or saying things that are not part of your behavior, it can rob you, drain your energy and zest for life or even kill your initiative.
Out of the Bible comes the line (Romans 12:2) that says, “Do not conform to the world but be renewed in your mind with the purposes of God.”
God made each one of us uniquely. There is no other you in this whole world. You bring to the table unique gifts and talents. Maybe till now you have been aligning with the general views of people. Maybe today is the day for you to say, “I’m unique. There is no other me.” Maybe today is also the time when other people need to hear what you bring to the table. Don’t play safe. Maybe the world needs to hear you this morning.
God Bless You All.
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