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Nicholas Parker Instructor: Malcolm Campbell English 1102-014 9/03/2013 Topic Proposal: What Is The Pack Mentality? Introduction Overview For my project I will be examining the sociological and possible psychological effects of a group, and how it affects its individuals over the course of this semester. This is a natural occurrence that we have all seen before whether it be at concerts, sporting events, or even just hanging out with new people. I took an introduction to sociology class last year and I remembered this being a topic we discussed briefly coming down to the fact that, by instinct humans like other animals in a group will conform to the group or risk being deserted. While not having done any formal research as of yet, I have asked a few Psychology majors I know about this occurrence. They told me that this is one thing that is taught to us, that we should be part of the group, and be like the group from a young age. We are taught that, to not be like the group is to not be in the group and therefore alone. This topic is quite complex due to the nature that there are outliers, people who dont care and are unwilling to change their behavior for some reason(s). There are also people who prefer to be alone and not be in a group environment.

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Initial Inquiry Question(s) My initial inquiry question would be, what is it in a group setting that causes the individuals to change their behavior, possibly their mind set, and overall character? Does this have temporary effect or is it more permanent, and through how much exposure? My Interest in this Topic I am personally interested in this topic because, I have seen this happen so many time and had it happen specifically happen to me so many times, for example in an environment like a sporting event in which individuals who are not even passionate fans of the sport get immersed in the cheering of the crowd and start to follow it. This occurrence has always surprised me to see how myself and others change when in a group environment. I have also seen the opposite reaction where one person has had an effect on the group. I took an introduction to sociology class last year and remember talking about how people, like animals tent to conform to groups instinctively. I hope to learn more about this as for how or why this occurs and what started this. Next steps I plan to make use of the resources at our library to try and find professional view points on this topic, hopefully through scholarly journals and articles, and examine a few sociological and/or psychological experiments conducted. I also plan to make use of reference librarians to help me in my search.