CONFORMITY: 2nd Mistake Students Make - AYODELE DANIEL DADA

Conformity is a huge problem in the higher institutions and any school setting and even in the world general. Conformity is such that we do not realise that the person at the head of the queue may be blind. You are just following people who are just following others who are yet following others.

You easily see a leader who is so confident in what he is doing but you forget that the person may be as clueless as you are - That is a huge mistake. You don't follow people for their own sake because they are charismatic about what they do. So when you see a lot of people on a queue or doing the same thing, you have to ask yourself whether they are going to the same direction as you are.

Come to think of it, it is often where you see a negative thing happening is where you see a lot of crowd gathering to witness or see things for themselves. YOU HAVE TO BE CAREFUL BECAUSE WHEN YOU CONFORM, YOU SUSPEND RATIONAL THINKING. You just go with the crowd because everybody is going there.

In such cases, everything is on auto-pilot. You tell yourself, 10million people can't be wrong. It is a phycology problem called social proof. It is also known as informational social influence. A psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation.