Social Influence: Conformity

• Internalisation


  Making the beliefs, values, attitude and behaviour of the group your own (the strongest type of conformity, and often occurs as a result of informational social influence). An individual's change of view is permanent e.g. being brought up in a religious household, and becoming religious yourself.
• Identification


  Temporary/short term change of behaviour and beliefs only in the presence of a group (middle level) e.g. acting more professional and less silly when you arrive at your office to work
• Compliance


  Following other people's ideas/going along with the group to gain their approval or avoid disapproval. You publically agree but privately disagree (lowest weakest level of conformity) An individual's change of view is temporary and is likely to occur as a result of normative social influence e.g. when friends pressure you into drinking alcohol when you don't truly want to, and will not drink outside of such social situations.
• Informational Social Influence


  When someone conforms because they want to be right, so they look to others by copying or obeying them, to have the right answer in a situation; when a person is uncertain or unsure, they would look to others for information. It usually leads to internalisation and occurs in situations where we do not have the knowledge or expertise to make our own decisions e.g. a person following the direction of the crowd in an emergency, even though they don't actually know where they are going, as they assume that everyone else is going to the right place.
• Evidence for Informational Social Influence

  • Fein et al. asked participants to vote for a US presidential candidate after they saw others voting for somebody else. Most of the participants changed their mind because they wanted to be 'correct', thus demonstrating the impact of informational social influence as a mechanism for conformity
• Normative Social Influence


  When someone conforms because they want to be liked and be part of a group: when a person's need to be accepted or have approval from a group drives compliance. It often occurs when a person wants to avoid the embarrassing situation of disagreeing with the majority e.g. a person starting to smoke because they are surrounded by other people who smoke
• Evidence for Normative Social Influence

  • There is evidence supporting the link between NSI and bullying, thus suggesting a real-life application with an increased understanding of the different types of conformity. Garandeau and Cillissen found that a boy can be manipulated by a bully into victimising another child because the bully provides a common goal for the boy's group of friends, the goal is to victimise the other child, so the boy would most likely also victimise the child to avoid disapproval from his friends.
• Evidence for Informational Social Influence

  • Lucas et al found that conformity to an obviously incorrect maths answer was greater when the question was more difficult and the participant rated their own maths ability unfavourably. This shows that individuals are more likely to turn to others when they lack the information to make their own informed decisions Le. in an ambiguous situation.
• NSI and ISI may not be completely exclusive, as suggested by Deutsch and Gerrard's Two Process Model'. For example, a dissenting confederate can provide social support, thus reducing the effect of NSI through providing the naive participant with a supporting, similar view. Equally, this can also reduce the effect of ISI through the confederate proving the participant with an alternative source of information. This means that it may be more beneficial to look at NSI and ISI as complementary, as opposed to mutually exclusive mechanisms.