As children grow and move into the adult stage of their lives, many physical and mental changes occur. In the world of science, people refer to the gradual change of a living creature as metamorphosis. In a human’s case, metamorphosis may not only be bodily change, but also a change in how a person views the world.

In today’s age, this type of change among human beings primarily occurs during the teenage years. Many juveniles mentally change into different people due to the struggle to conform to other people’s ideologies, while very few keep the same mindset that they entered with.

I can attest from personal experience that in my freshman class of high school, almost everyone wanted to be like everyone else. From their actions and they way spoke (poor or articulate), to the sports they played, the people they talked to, and even their political views, people changed to fit in.

For me, the conformity situation was quite odd. While I was raised and taught by my mother to always be my own person and stick to my beliefs, others learned that to get people to like them, they should adapt to act like those people. To some, the concept might seem subtle and abstract, but social conformity is a large problem among today’s youth.

Multiple studies demonstrate that if a young person does not become socially independent, that person can have social problems during adulthood. Also, not being able to stick with personal beliefs can lead to serious problems during a young man or woman’s life. For example, if someone offers drugs or alcohol to a socially independent young adult, the person can have the ability to decline, while in the opposite case, a socially dependent person might value his friendship with the provider greater than doing the correct thing.

What I have realized is that when you put yourself among certain people, both you and they will change (for better or worse). We program our actions to be a little bit more like those of the people we are around until we actually use some of their characteristics in our day to day lives.This phenomenon is known as the “chameleon effect.”

During the teenage years, many people are morphing based on their newly gained knowledge of what society “should be.” This means they potentially form ideas and morals based on their view of how others live. In moderation, these acts of conformity can be healthy, as youngsters are still creating beliefs and ideologies. But in an extreme case, social conformity can be very dangerous.

Many years ago humans developed the chameleon effect as a way to adapt to their situations unconsciously. This was useful to evade potential predators, and catch prey, but in today’s age, humans use this natural instinct to fit into a certain social group, move into a particular economic class, and in the case of young people, act like their peers.

The reason advanced humans have not dropped this unconscious trait after several hundred years is simple. The chameleon effect gets people to unconsciously like us more. In a 1999 study by Tanya Chartrand and John Bargh on the chameleon effect and social interactions, scientists found that mimicry “facilitates the smoothness of interactions and increases liking between interaction partners.”

In conclusion, young people wanting to fit in with their peers is the norm. It can be looked at as harmful, but it can also be a way to make lifelong friends and learn other people’s ways of life.

So, once we understand and realize this, we can try to be conscious of our “chameleon” behavior, and thus have the choice to do the right or wrong thing. Humans have the tendency to give in to the dominant personality, often the more aggressive one. But when we are conscious, we can refrain from wrongdoing. 

During my freshman year experience, I saw good kids modeling mean behavior in order to gain popularity. Those who did not care about popularity, came out unscathed, as opposed to those who sought out the mean and “cool” ideologies of others. Unfortunately, those conformers will go into the real world emulating the actions of others, and without intending to,  become non-productive and potentially unkind chameleons.