Belonging Relies on Us Forfeiting Our Individuality Essay

In a world that pressures for conformity, one of the greatest challenges we all face is to be ourselves. We not only want to belong, we need to belong, and so we are at our best when we feel connected to those around us. We like to be appreciated, enjoy admiration and crave to feel significant to those around us. Too often though, in our quest to feel significant, we forfeit expressing our individuality and limit our vulnerability. In the process we lose touch with what makes us special, disconnect from authenticity and give up what makes us someone who others feel they can really connect to. All people balance the need to conform and fit in with the need to express their individuality throughout their lives. The want to belong has the†¦show more content†¦By reducing individual differences, these various groups become more cohesive. The cohesiveness of a group can make its members lose their sense of self in the overwhelming identity of the group. Physically normalized to t he standards of their respective groups, these various group members are all at risk to feel deindividuized. They may begin to think of themselves as a mere part of the group, and lose the awareness that they are an individual with the capacity to think and act completely separately from their group. They could do things they might not usually do out of shyness, individual morality, self-consciousness, or other factors. Due to reduced feelings of accountability, and increased feelings of group cohesion and conformity, these group members could act in a manner of non-normative ways. Furthermore, deindividualisation is expressed in Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mocking Bird, the protagonist, a young girl named Scout, comes across a mob about to hurt an innocent man. The members of the mob are undergoing deindividuation, their feelings of individuality and personal responsibility diminished by the overbearing presence of the group. However, Scout recognizes one of the members and calls him by his name, thereby reminding him of his identity and breaking his feelings of deindividuation. Suddenly self-aware,