Can You Get Ahead Being Bad?

Everybody loves a bad boy, the ‘good girl gone bad’. Especially in America, where our culture has always idealized the idea of not conforming – taking the path less traveled, refusing to be silenced, standing out and embracing the individualistic mindset. Archetypal characters have been plastered across the media throughout history, representing what we all could be: free, untamed, individual identities. Some of our favorite characters fall into this category, such as Bender from “The Breakfast Club” (one of my favorites) and ‘Bad’ Sandy from “Grease"

 We love them because they don’t fit the mold; they stand out from the norm and do what they want rather than what they’re supposed to. They do what we want to. But how are they perceived in real life?

More often than not, people censor themselves in order to fall in line with the social norms of their culture. It happens in America, it happens in Asia, it happens all over the world. Why do we submit ourselves to conformity – that is, why do we adjust our behavior in response to the real or, more likely, imagined influence of other people? It doesn’t need to be a dramatic challenge to norms, such as public protests, but possibly a small act like interrupting someone’s sentence to say something or cutting in line. In the textbook, a viable explanation is given: “Groups have certain expectations about how the group members should behave, and members in good standing conform to these rules. Members who do not are perceived as different, difficult, and eventually deviant” (Aronson 205).

This implies that those who deviate from the standards that a certain group sets will be rejected. It also encompasses the idea of normative social influence; this type of conformity results in public compliance with the group’s beliefs and behaviors but not necessarily private acceptance of those things. So, deep down nobody really wants to conform (most likely we desire the opposite), but everyone does anyway because we desire the acceptance of others and fear being cast out from the group – because that’s what happens to all the deviants, right?

            Think about the upcoming presidential election. You may not expect someone who defies social norms to have a shot: we’d never think that a person who can’t even comply with our societal standards, everything we consider good and normal, could have the capacity to run said society, right? Certainly such people would not become influential members of our society because they do not fit the mold the others expect? This may not be true. Think about Donald Trump, who has monopolized political conversation due to his unwillingness to censor his highly controversial voice, or Bernie Sanders, whose viewpoints are often viewed as radical and foreign to many. It’s time to consider that the nonconforming persona may have more influence than just on-screen, but in real life too.

In a series of studies conducted by Gerben A. Van Kleef and colleagues, the idea that violating social norms was a sign of power was tested for. As they put it, “Violating a norm implies that one has the power to act according to one’s own volition in spite of situational constraints, which fuels perceptions of power” (Van Kleef 500). Four nonconformity situations were presented, a control accompanying each one: a scenario where someone took coffee from another person’s can; a scenario in which bookkeeper who violates the rules and doesn’t do anything to fix the situation; a video of a man in a public cafeteria propping his legs up on another chair, dropping cigarette ash on the ground, and replying curtly to the waiter; lastly, an experiment with one participant and two confederates gathering to fill out a questionnaire, during which one of the confederates came in late and threw his bag down and put his feet up on the table. What was found across all the different conditions was that those who were the norm-violators were perceived to be more powerful than those in the control situations, both by explicit measures of power and implicit measures like emotional reactions and action tendencies. 

            Norm violation doesn’t always lead to an increased perception of power, of course. What is important to take away from this is that those who do not fit the mold should not be discounted, for they can end up having great influence. Depending on circumstances (what norm is being violated, the surrounding environment, etc.), this can be good or bad. Social norms are important for helping societies function, but should always be questioned and changing with the times and generations. Especially with things such as presidential elections, one of our country’s ultimate power struggles, coming up, it is important to consider the level to which candidates conform to norms and whether or not that is a good thing or not. Everybody loves a bad boy (or girl), yes. But are they bad for the right reasons?

Aronson, Elliot, et al. Social Psychology. 8^th ed. New York: Pearson Education Limited, 2013. Print.  

Van Kleef, G. A., Homan, A. C., Finkenauer, C., Gündemir, S., & Stamkou, E.

            (2011). Breaking the rules to rise to power: How norm violators gain power in

            the eyes of others. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2, 500-507.

[Ann Mondi]