Conforming to the rules and standards of one’s society can cause harmful or beneficial effects on a person, depending on the severity of the situation. Throughout this journal article, author Kevin James Spears Zollman discusses the overall effects conformity has on a person, and more specifically what effects conformity has on different obdurate social networks and their structure. By analyzing a mathematical model of the conformist behavior, Zollman was able to distinguish the positive effects conformist behavior has on individual reliability and the negative effects it has on a group’s reliability. Due to Zollman’s familiarity and research focus on game theory — the study of mathematical models of calculated reactions between reasonable decision makers — and his profession as an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University, he serves as an extremely credible source on this topic. In Voltaire’s Candide, Candide is influenced by his wealth and confidence about what lies ahead. It isn’t until Candide is throw out of his home that he realizes the hardships other people encounter and that he was wrong to be optimistic. This journal article written by Kevin James Spears Zollman has provided me an extensive amount of effective information on the positive and negative effects conformity has on a person or group, as well as how these effects are reflected in social structures.