Download Conformity and Alienation - Challenge and Change in Society

ALIENATION AND CONFORMITY
2 Factors of Social Change
ALIENATION

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Alienation = emotional dissociation and isolation and
is marked by an inability to follow the rules of society
or share in the values in society.
Alienation is said to occur because people have
difficulty adapting to societal change
ALIENATION
Change can be difficult for some people – use the
Industrial Revolution as an example:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Efq-aNBkvc
industrial revolution
 What were the major changes experienced by the
majority of the population?
 How did they cope with these changes?

VIEW FROM SOCIOLOGY

Emile Durkheim
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Anomie – condition of industrial workers without
roots or norms as they struggled to survive.
Karl Marx

Alienation – proletariat (workers) or
lumpenproletariat (unemployed) could not reach
their full potential because so many aspects of their
lives were controlled and exploited by others
DURKHEIM’S STUDY OF SUICIDE
ANOMIC SUICIDE
Anomic Suicide is committed by people when
society is in crisis or rapid change.
 In such times, customary norms may weaken or
break down.
 With no clear standards of behavior to guide
them, many people become confused, their usual
goals lose meaning, and life seems aimless.


i.e. Rapid social change of the Industrial
Revolution
ALIENATION – CURRENT DAY EXAMPLE
Term has broadened over time.
 Anyone who does not share the major values of society
and feels like an outsider.


Discrimination (i.e.. exclusion from society for various
factors)
Dissatisfaction
 Reasons for alienation vary:

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Discrimination that excludes a member of a visible minority from
participating in society
Dissatisfaction of an unhappy teenager – homeless youth
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3mBA4ji2So
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ALIENATION

Everyone has experienced alienation from society at
some point in their life.
Someone who loses their job and becomes unemployed
might feel alienation toward a society that seems to value
wealth and success.
 For some, alienation becomes so severe that they give up
and turn to crime or poverty.
 Suicide and substance abuse can be both the result of, and
an explanation for, alienation.


But not all alienation is bad; some people may
become reformers and lobby to change an
aspect of society.
Women in the 1920s and 1930s experienced significant
alienation from the prevailing social attitudes towards
what was a woman’s role.
 Led individuals to challenge the accepted view and become
leaders in the fight to achieve legal, financial, and political
reforms to benefit women.

ALIENATION – ANOTHER
CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLE OF ALIENATION
Joining of cults or gangs
 Anarchy/ Extremism - set out to destroy the
society which they live through armed struggle


Terrorists
ALIENATION

These extremely alienated individuals are called
Anarchists. Often resort to violent means –
retaliation.
http://www.5min.com/Video/The-Oklahoma-CityBombing-119995400
 Ottawa shooting

SOCIAL CHANGE - ALIENATION AND
CONFORMITY

Alienation can cause positive change

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E.g. Women’s movement was about change
because of dissatisfaction with social roles
Conformity has a tendency to discourage
social change.

E.g. trying a new hairstyle
 Nervous about reaction of others stifles desire to
change
CONFORMITY
Process whereby an individual’s attitudes, beliefs
and behaviours are influenced by other people
 Could be the result of social pressure
 People often conform to achieve a sense of
security in a group of people – a feeling that
makes one ‘belong’
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyDDyT1lDhA
 Asch experiment

CONFORMITY – SOCIAL GROUPS

When social scientists examine the topic of groups, they
state that a group is two or more people who have these
four characteristics:
They interact regularly and influence each other.
 They believe they have something in common.
 They have an informal or formal social structure with leaders
and followers.
 They have a group consensus on certain values, behaviours,
and goals.

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By looking at those characteristics you can probably think
of the several areas in your life where you see other people
talk and influence thinking and emotions.

People who just happen to be waiting in a line at the same
time would not be considered a social group. They are a
collection of people or what social scientists call an aggregate.
They interact only briefly, if at all, and have little influence on
one another.
CONFORMITY
People adopt the values and ideals from their
families, friends, and other groups to which they
belong.
 People also tend to adopt the values of the society
in which they live.
 A great majority of people in Canadian society
tend to have similar ways of thinking. Even
though everyone may not agree on which political
party should be in power, for example, most do
believe in the fundamental freedoms of
democracy.

SUBJECTIVE VALIDITY

Subjective Validity
Term coined by social scientists
 All people believe that their attitudes are right and proper

Being with groups helps to strengthen the idea of
subjective validity and that is why humans tend to
enjoy being around like-minded people.
 Social scientist further argue that without subjective
validity people would experience uncertainty, a feeling
most people do not like.

ROOTS OF CONFORMITY
Social scientists M. Deutsch and H.B. Gerrard
identified two types of conformity.
 Informational influence
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is the human desire to accept information from
another, admired person who indicates that the
information is valid. For example, a parent may tell a
young child that smoking is bad. That child will
conform to what the parent states because the child
admires the parent.
Normative influence

the pressure to conform to the positive expectations
of others. For example, some young adults will take
on the same job as a parent because it has always
been expected that they would.
SOCIAL CHANGE AND CONFORMITY
Conformity has the ability to discourage
social change. People tend to do the same thing
the same way year after year and to resist the
temptation to do things differently.
 Conformity also allows people to feel as if they fit
in, and this can have serious consequences
especially if it encourages people to accept
practices that they know are wrong.

CONFORMITY IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
Most people conform to the standard values and
norms without even realizing they are doing so
 Some degree of conformity is necessary for
societies to function

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i.e. Stopping at a red light means that you are
conforming to the law and the good and safety of
society
CONFORMITY AND YOUTH
Pre-teens and teenagers face many issues related
to conformity
 Pulled between the desire to be seen as unique
individuals and desire to belong to a group where
they feel accepted


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i.e. wearing the latest fashion, cutting your hair into
a certain style, smoking, changing the type of music
you listen to
All of these are examples of conforming to a
social norm
KEY QUESTIONS
 In
groups of 2-4, discuss the following
questions:
What groups in society may feel socially isolated?
 Why is this?
 What groups in society are forced to conform?

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
SCENARIO 1

You are waiting to cross the street and the light
is red. A group of pedestrians start to cross the
street before the green light even though there
remains some risk of oncoming traffic. What do
you do?
WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
SCENARIO 2

You are looking for garbage at a concert. You
find one but it is full and you see people just
throwing garbage on the ground around the
garbage can. What do you do?
WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
SCENARIO 3

You have just started a new job and are sitting
around with your new co-workers. Someone tells
a joke that is very racist and everyone is
laughing and starts telling more racist jokes
that you find offensive. What do you do?
DISCUSSION
Which situation would be the most easy and most
difficult in terms of resisting conformity?
 Why?

THE PEOPLE, THE COMMUNITY, THE
MOVEMENT THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

The Montgomery Bus Boycott
political and social protest campaign
 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, USA
 oppose the city's policy of racial segregation on its public
transit system
 many important figures in the civil rights movement were
involved in the boycott, including Reverend Martin Luther
King, Jr.

MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT
•
The boycott caused crippling financial deficit for
the Montgomery public transit system, because
the city's black population who were the
principal boycotters were also the bulk of the
system's paying customers. The campaign lasted
from December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks, an
African American woman, was arrested for
refusing to surrender her seat to a white person,
to December 20, 1956, when a federal ruling,
Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United
States Supreme Court decision that declared the
Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring
segregated buses to be unconstitutional.
SEGREGATED BUS SYSTEM

Under the system of segregation used on Montgomery
buses, white people who boarded the bus took seats in
the front rows, filling the bus toward the back. Black
people who boarded the bus took seats in the back
rows, filling the bus toward the front. Eventually, the
two sections would meet, and the bus would be full. If
other black people boarded the bus, they were required
to stand. If another white person boarded the bus, then
everyone in the black row nearest the front had to get
up and stand, so that a new row for white people could
be created. Often when boarding the buses, black
people were required to pay at the front, get off, and reenter the bus through a separate door at the back. On
some occasions bus drivers would drive away before
black passengers were able to reboard.
ROSA PARKS
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When Rosa Parks refused on the
afternoon of Dec. 1, 1955, to give up
her bus seat so that a white man
could sit, it is unlikely that she fully
realized the forces she had set into
motion and the controversy that
would soon swirl around her. Other
black women had similarly refused to
give up their seats on public buses
and had even been arrested,
including two young women earlier
that same year in Montgomery, Ala.
But this time the outcome was
different.
A LONG WALK HOME –
MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT
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Explain the role conformity plays within the Civil Rights
Movement. Give one specific example of a character that
conforms and the result of this conformity.
Explain the role alienation plays within the Civil Rights
Movement. Give one specific example of a character that is
alienated and the result of this alienation.
Risks are sometimes a reality for bringing about social
change. Explain the risks that Mrs. Thompson takes to be
part of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
If put in Mrs. Thompson's place, would you have taken those
same risks? Fully explain your reasoning.
What prevents us from taking part in movements that we
may feel sympathetic towards?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDgJN7kTN3c&feature=c
hannel&list=UL