Types and Explanations of Conformity

• What is informational social influence?

  • When individuals conform because they want to be right and look to others for information
  • Cognitive process because it is about how you think
  • Leads to permanent change in behaviour (internalisation)
• What is normative social influence?

  • When individuals conform because they want social approval or to fit in with the group
  • Emotional process as it is about wanting to avoid rejection
  • Leads to a temporary change in behaviour (compliance)
• What is conformity and what are the 3 types?

  • Conformity: the tendency for individuals to align their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors with those of the people around them
  • Kelman (1958) suggested there are 3 ways in which people conform to the opinion of a majority:
  • Internalisation
  • Identification
  • Compliance
• What is internalisation?

  • When a person genuinely accepts the group norms, resulting in a private as well as public change of beliefs
  • Permanent because attitudes have been internalised and change persists even in the absence of the group
• What is identification?

  • Conforming to the opinions/behaviour of a group because there is something about them that we value
  • We publicly change our opinions/behaviour to be accepted by them even if we do not privately agree with everything they stand for e.g. dressing in the same style as people at college
• What is compliance?

  • A superficial and temporary type of conformity where we outwardly go along with the group in public but privately not changing personal opinions/behaviour
  • This behaviour stops as soon as group pressure stops
• What is one strength of types/explanations of conformity?

  • Research support for NSI: Asch (1951) interviewed participants who said they conformed due to feeling self-conscious giving the correct answer and being afraid of disapproval
  • When ppts. wrote answers down privately (no group pressure), conformity fell to 12.5%
  • Supports NSI as for some conformity is due to a desire not to be rejected by the group for disagreeing with them
• What is another strength of types/explanations for conformity?

  • Research support for ISI: Lucas et al. (2006) asked ppts. to solve easy and hard maths problems and were given answers from 3 other students that were not correct
  • As task difficulty increased, so did conformity - situation became ambiguous and participants did not want to be wrong
  • Shows ISI is a valid explanation due to evidence to support its' predictions
• What is one limitation of types/explanations for conformity?

  • Unclear which is at work: Asch (1955) found that conformity decreases when there is another dissenting participant, who could either reduce normative social influence by providing social support or reduce informational social influence by providing an alternative source of information
  • Hard to separate ISI and NSI as both processes probably operate together in most real-world conformity situations
• What is another limitation of types/explanations for conformity?

  • Individual differences: McGhee and Teevan (1967) identify people who are greatly concerned with being liked by others as nAffiliators - have a strong need for 'affiliation' and relating to others
  • These people were found more likely to conform, showing that NSI underlies conformity for some people more than others
  • Explanation is not universal/applicable to everybody