Group Conformity

Content Warning & Reader Care

This card discusses childhood abuse, depression, suicidal thoughts, religious conformity, and the pressure to change aspects of yourself to fit the expectations of a religious community. It also touches on the experience of struggling with religious teachings about sexuality, including same-sex attraction, and religious restrictions surrounding masturbation, pornography, sexual shame, restrictions on private behavior and sexual thoughts.

This article uses religious terminology and phrases, including language about what is considered godly, demonic, and spiritually acceptable. These terms may be triggering or distressing for people who have experienced religious trauma, spiritual abuse, or high-control religious environments.

Please take care of yourself as you read. You can pause, step away, skip a section, or come back another time. You do not have to push through discomfort to get something out of this series.

Your well-being matters more than finishing an article. Remember, there is no rush. If you need to take a break, this will be here for you when you are ready to come back.

Group Conformity

Remember the deck?

We’ve been examining the mechanisms that operate within high-control religious environments and how they work together to shape the people inside them.

Group conformity is another card in that deck.

We often think of conformity as everyone wanting to be the same. But it isn’t always that simple. Within a church, conformity can be framed as spiritual growth, accountability, or helping one another become better people.

In the church, they called it iron sharpens iron.

The idea was that we helped each other grow. We encouraged one another to become better people, to live more godly lives, and to move away from the things that didn’t fit those expectations.

It was explained using the image of a tumbler full of rocks. Some rocks have rough, jagged edges. When you throw a bunch of rocks into a tumbler together, they bounce off one another, crash into one another, and break off those rough pieces. Eventually, what you end up with is a bunch of smooth rocks.

But what happens when the process of sharpening people also means shaving off the parts of them that don’t fit the group? What happens when the individual parts that made them who they were are expected to disappear for the sake of conformity?

What happens when the group’s expectations become the standard by which members measure not only their own behavior, but the behavior of the people around them?

For me, this wasn’t just an idea or a metaphor. It showed up in everyday interactions.

I presented as what people call a tomboy. I wore chains and holey jeans, I swore a lot,  I wore hats, T-shirts, flannels, and other girls’ leather jackets. I was rough around the edges, and I didn’t fit the church’s expectations of how a girl was supposed to look and behave.

The person who invited me to church would say things like, “I didn’t know Christians swore,” or “Ladies don’t dress like that,” and “Christians don’t behave that way.”

Those comments communicated expectations. They told me what a Christian was supposed to sound like and how a lady was supposed to look. My language and my clothes weren’t just personal choices anymore. They became things that could be measured against the group’s idea of what was acceptable.

I was being shown, in small everyday moments, which parts of myself didn’t fit the norm.

It wasn’t just about the comments, either.

I had to start dressing more femininely. No more chains, no hat at church, makeup. The things I wore and the way I presented myself were expected to change.

I still wore my hat, just not to church.

I stopped smoking. I stopped drinking, stopped swearing.

Little by little, the things that didn’t fit the image of what a Christian girl was supposed to look like or how she was supposed to behave were pushed out of the picture.

And it wasn’t limited to how we looked or the habits we had.

I was involved in drama, and there were things that would be called demonic or not godly. We were encouraged to stop doing those things. No TV in the home for people who were in ministry. Don’t go places alone with someone of the opposite sex.

Looking back, I realize it was anything that could be an outside influence on us. They started saying things like, “Don’t be unequally yoked,” explaining that friendships and relationships outside the church could cause us to stumble, which meant that they could cause us to sin.

The group’s expectations reached beyond how we dressed and behaved. They also shaped which activities were considered acceptable, which relationships were encouraged, and which influences we were expected to leave behind.

There were rules about relationships and sexuality, too.

No sex before marriage. No fornication. No pornography. No masturbation. No impure thoughts.

The expectations reached into people’s private lives, not just their public behavior at church. There were standards for what you could do, what you could watch, and even what you were allowed to do alone.

And these expectations weren’t without consequences. If you were in ministry, breaking the rules could mean being punished, called out, or losing your ministry. You could even be kicked out of the church.

There were expectations about who we spent time with, too. We weren’t supposed to hang out with sinners unless we were trying to get them to come to church and get their hearts right.

Relationships with people outside the church were treated differently depending on their purpose. We were encouraged to bring people in, bring people back, and help get their hearts right. Our relationships were being shaped by the expectation that we should influence other people toward the church, rather than allow outside influences to shape us.

Eventually, there were rules and restrictions throughout every part of our lives.

What we wore. What we watched. What we did in our free time. Who we spent time with. How we behaved. What we did in private. Even our relationships with people outside the church were expected to serve a purpose.

And these expectations weren’t simply things we heard and then forgot about. They were reinforced through the people around us, through the roles we held, and through the consequences for stepping outside the accepted boundaries.

This is where group conformity becomes more than a matter of everyone sharing similar beliefs. The group establishes what is acceptable, and members learn to measure themselves and one another against that standard.

We had also been taught and trained to surveil one another to ensure conformity and compliance. Watching each other wasn’t separate from the expectations themselves. It was part of how those expectations were maintained. Members weren’t simply learning what the group considered acceptable. They were also learning to recognize when someone else stepped outside those boundaries.

The expectation isn’t just that you belong. It’s that you become someone who fits, and that you help ensure the people around you fit, too.

In our church, we were taught that we were the army of God. That language shaped how we understood our place within the group and what was expected of us.

An army is expected to function as a coordinated unit. Its members are expected to follow orders, maintain discipline, and work together toward a common objective. Individual actions are evaluated in relation to the mission, and people are expected to operate within the structure rather than simply do whatever they want.

When we were taught to see ourselves as God’s army, conformity could be understood as part of fulfilling that purpose. We weren’t just individuals who happened to share religious beliefs. We were members of a collective, expected to behave in ways that supported what we had been taught was God’s mission.

What Is Group Conformity?

The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines conformity as adjusting our opinions, judgments, or actions to become more consistent with the opinions, judgments, or actions of other people, or with the normative standards of a social group or situation.

In simpler terms, conformity is the process of adjusting how we think, behave, or act to align with the expectations of the people around us or the group we belong to.

Conformity can take different forms. Sometimes, we change our outward behavior without privately agreeing with the expectation. Other times, we come to accept the group’s standards as our own. The APA distinguishes between temporary outward compliance and more enduring private acceptance.

This means that conformity isn’t necessarily the same as agreement. A person can behave in accordance with a group’s expectations without believing those expectations are right. Conversely, a person can gradually adopt the group’s standards and begin using them to evaluate their own behavior and the behavior of others.

How Does Group Conformity Work?

One of the ways conformity operates is through normative social influence. This occurs when people adjust their behavior to align with a group’s expectations, often because they want to be accepted, maintain their place in the group, or avoid disapproval.

The pressure to conform doesn’t always come in the form of a direct order. It can be communicated through comments, reactions, expectations, and the way people are treated when they do or don’t fit in. Over time, members learn which behaviors receive approval and which ones risk criticism or consequences.

In a high-control religious environment, these expectations can extend well beyond participation in religious services. They can shape appearance, language, relationships, entertainment, personal habits, and private behavior. The group’s standards become a reference point for evaluating what is acceptable, and members may adjust their behavior to remain in good standing with the community.

When the Group Enforces Its Own Norms

Conformity becomes more deeply embedded when members are not only expected to follow the group’s standards themselves but are also taught to recognize and correct behavior that falls outside those standards.

In our church, we were taught to surveil one another to ensure conformity and compliance. This was framed in a way that we were looking out for each other and protecting each other from falling away from God.

This was praised and spoken highly of. Watching over one another was presented as a way of caring for each other’s spiritual well-being.

That framing matters because when a practice is presented as good, responsible, or necessary, people can learn to view participation in it as part of fulfilling their role within the community. Monitoring one another becomes more than something the group expects. It becomes something members can understand as a responsibility they have toward each other and the group as a whole.

Maintaining conformity was not the sole responsibility of leadership. Members were also part of the process, expected to uphold the standards themselves and help ensure that others did the same.

Solomon Asch and the Pressure to Conform

In the 1950s, psychologist Solomon Asch conducted a series of experiments examining how group pressure could influence a person’s judgment.

Participants were asked to compare the length of a line with several other lines and identify the one that matched. The task was straightforward. The correct answer was visually apparent.

However, each participant was placed in a group where several other people, who were working with the researcher, deliberately gave the wrong answer on certain trials. The real participant had to decide whether to give the answer they could see was correct or go along with the group’s response.

Asch found that participants sometimes conformed to the incorrect majority, even when the correct answer was clear. In the original experiments, approximately 75 percent of participants conformed to the majority at least once.

The experiment demonstrated that group pressure can influence people’s public responses even when they have access to the information needed to make their own judgment. Unlike Sherif’s experiments, where participants faced an ambiguous situation and relied on others for guidance, Asch’s experiments examined conformity when the answer was comparatively clear.

This matters. People don’t only look to a group because they are uncertain about what is right. They may also adjust what they say or do because they are the only person giving a different answer and they don’t want to stand out.

Why Do People Conform?

Conformity is not inherently good or bad. Shared expectations can help people cooperate and maintain social order. Agreeing to respect other people’s property, for example, is a form of conformity that can benefit a community.

The consequences depend on what the group expects, how those expectations are maintained, and what happens when someone does not comply.

People may conform because they believe the group is correct, because they want to be accepted, or because they want to avoid disagreement and social rejection. Social proof can also influence behavior. When people see that most members of a group are doing something, they may assume that the behavior is appropriate or correct.

These influences can overlap. Someone may initially follow a group’s expectations to fit in, then gradually come to accept those expectations as their own. What begins as an adjustment in behavior can eventually start to shape a person’s beliefs, attitudes, and even their understanding of the world.

Groups also reinforce their norms through the behavior of their members. Established members may model what is considered acceptable, praise people who comply, criticize those who do not, or use other forms of social pressure to encourage conformity.

In a high-control religious environment, these processes can reach beyond shared practices and expectations. They can shape how members dress, speak, spend their time, form relationships, and evaluate and police their own behavior. The group’s standards become a reference point for judging not only oneself, but other members as well. The leaders and the Bible became the ultimate authorities on how members were allowed to live and behave.

Conformity is a common part of human social behavior, and it can serve useful purposes. But under certain circumstances, it can also become dangerous.

When questioning the group is not acceptable, members may learn to suppress their doubts, disregard their own judgment, or go along with expectations they would otherwise question. If disagreement risks criticism, punishment, or the loss of belonging, the cost of speaking up can become greater than the perceived cost of complying.

The danger is not only that people follow the crowd. It is that they may stop feeling and being able to question where the crowd is going, what it expects of them, or whether those expectations are justified. When questioning becomes unacceptable, people may begin to suppress their critical thinking and set aside parts of their individuality to remain in good standing with the group.

In a high-control religious environment, this can affect far more than outward behavior. When the group establishes the standards for what is acceptable, and members are discouraged from questioning those standards, conformity can begin to shape how they understand themselves, their choices, and the people around them.

When questioning is not permitted, conformity can become a way of maintaining the group’s expectations even when those expectations cause harm.

Bringing It Back to the Bigger Picture

Looking back at my experience, conformity wasn’t limited to what happened during church services. It reached into how I dressed, how I spoke, what I watched, how I spent my time, and how I was expected to behave. It reached into every single aspect of my life. The people around me reinforced those expectations, and we were taught to watch over one another to make sure we didn’t fall away from God.

At the time, these expectations were framed as ways to grow spiritually, protect one another, and become better Christians. We were taught that we were sharpening one another, helping each other become who God wanted us to be.

But there is a difference between supporting someone as they grow and expecting them to change themselves to fit a group’s standards. When the group determines what is acceptable, when members are expected to enforce those expectations, and when questioning them is discouraged, conformity becomes more than fitting in. It becomes part of how the group maintains its boundaries.

This is where the cards begin to overlap. Belonging gives us a reason to stay. Social influence teaches us what others expect. Authority establishes which expectations carry weight. Conformity shapes how we respond to those expectations, including how we begin to monitor ourselves and one another.

No single mechanism explains the whole experience. Together, they help explain how a group can shape and control not only what its members do, but also what they learn to accept as normal, right, and necessary.

A Question to Sit With

When I look back, I ask myself how much of what I thought was simply who I was had been shaped by what I was expected and forced to be. The answer is tragic. Most of who I was while in the church was not who I really am. My perceptions, my beliefs, and the things that made me who I am were cast aside and regarded as sinful, compromising, and dangerous. I was always at war with who I really was, who I wanted to be, and who I was constantly being told that “God” wanted me to be to qualify as worthy and able to make heaven my home.

This is where cognitive dissonance can begin to wreak havoc. When what we experience, think, or feel conflicts with what we have been taught to believe, we are left trying to reconcile things that may not fit together. When we have also been taught that questioning those beliefs is wrong, even recognizing the conflict can become difficult.

What happens when fitting in requires you to keep setting aside parts of yourself? And what happens when you’re taught that questioning those expectations is itself a sign that something is wrong with you? That it is a part of your sinful nature?

These are difficult questions to seek answers to, but they matter. Recognizing conformity isn’t about blaming ourselves for wanting acceptance or belonging. Those are human needs. It’s about understanding what can happen when those needs are used, intentionally or otherwise, to reinforce expectations we aren’t free to question or challenge.

Let’s take a moment.

Recognizing these patterns in our own lives can bring up a lot of feelings. You don’t have to figure everything out right now.

Take a breath. Pause if you need to.

You control the pace.

Remember, there is no rush.

And I will be here when you are ready.

We will take it one card at a time, together.

Sources

• American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Conformity. APA Dictionary of Psychology.
  https://dictionary.apa.org/conformity

Why this source was used: Provides the psychological definition of conformity as adjusting opinions, judgments, or actions to align with other people or the normative standards of a group or situation. It supports the article’s explanation of conformity and the distinction between outward compliance and private acceptance.

• Asch, S. E. (1955). Opinions and social pressure. Scientific American, 193(5), 31–35.
  https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1155-31

Why this source was used: Examines Solomon Asch’s experiments on group pressure and conformity. The research supports the discussion of how participants sometimes gave incorrect answers to match a majority, even when the correct answer was visually apparent. It illustrates how social pressure can influence public responses even when individuals can make their own judgments.

• Sherif, M. (1936). The psychology of social norms. Harper & Brothers.

Why this source was used: Examines how social norms develop when people encounter ambiguous situations and use the judgments of others as a reference point. It supports the article’s comparison between informational social influence, where people look to others for guidance, and Asch’s research on conformity when the correct answer is comparatively clear.

#LetThemEatCrow #TheMurder #TheMechanisms #GroupConformity #SocialPsychology #NormativeSocialInfluence #SocialInfluence #HighControlReligion #ReligiousTrauma #ReligiousDeconstruction #Exvangelical #SurvivorStories #ReclaimingAgency #OneAtATime #Deconstruction