Tracy Truong                                                                                                                      Truong 1

Ms. Williams

English 1A

2 September 2013

Conformity in Society

                         A situation in which disobedience and refusal to conform can be a positive thing is peer bullying. “Peer bullying may be considered to be a group phenomenon that does not involve only the bully and victim but also the reinforcers who encourage the bully, assistants who join in the bullying, bystanders, and defenders..” (Cho, 520). Like many things, peer bullying is something that becomes possible because a group of people enforce it. According to Cho, bullying does not only include a few people. It includes a large group of people, even those who do not actually have anything to do with the bullying. The reason why such people are part of the bullying is because they do nothing to help the situation. Without disobedience, no one will stand up to the actual bully and stop what is happening. The bystanders who do nothing do not act with disobedience and therefore are a part of the bullying because they do not try to go against it. This relates back to the idea that students in our school system should disobey apathetic teachers and stand to change the school system, instead of quietly conforming to society and its rules. Conforming to today’s society only has negative effects. It can be seen in both peer bullying and complete obedience to authority. In reality, “studies that adopted the dichotomous approach reported this proportion of aggressors to be below 10%” (Cho, 520). This means that only a few people actually try to dominate and control others. Without the support, obedience, and conformity of others, these people are really powerless.

Citations

Cho, Yoonju, and Ock-Boon Chung. "A Mediated Moderation Model of Conformative Peer Bullying." Academic Search Premier. N.p., 1 June 2012. Web. 2 Sept. 2013.