conformity types and explainations

• What is the definition of social influence?

  The process by which an individuals attitudes, beliefs or behaviours are modified by the presence or action of others.
• What is the definition of conformity?

  A change in a person's behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people.
• What are the three types of conformity?

  Compliance, internalisation and identification.
• What is majority influence?

  When a larger group influences a smaller group, conformity happens when people are exposed to this and comply with that position.
• What is compliance?


  Going along to gain approval and to fit in and avoid ridicule or bullying. We change our behaviour publicly yet we privately disagree so it is only a superficial change.
• What is internalisation?


  Changed behaviour because we genuinely agree with other people's views, we believe they're right. We change both publicly and privately. The change is usually permanent because attitudes have been internalised I.e become part of the way someone thinks.
• What is identification?


  Elements of both compliance and internalisation. We accept the groups view as right publicly, even if we sometimes disagree privately, but we change because we want to be apart of it as we identify with the group. Something about the group holds value.
• Who proposed the two explanations for conformity? What are they based on?

  Deutsch and Gerard (1955) argued that there are two main reasons why people conform. They are based on two essential needs: the need to be right (ISI) and the need to be liked (NSI).
• What are the two explanations for conformity?

  Normative social influence (NSI) and Informational social influence (ISI)
• What is NSI?


  -emotional process (driven by desire to be liked/accepted) rather than a cognitive one.

  -It is about norms, so what is normal behaviour for a social group. People do not like to appear foolish and prefer to gain social approval than be rejected and so is most likely to happen when people worry about rejection ie in the company of strangers. It may also occur around people you know since we are most concerned about the social approval of our friends.

  -It leads to a temporary change in behaviour so is linked to compliance.
• What is ISI?


  -It is driven by the desire to be right or do the right thing. Often we are concerned with what behaviours are right or wrong e.g you may not know the answer to a question in class but if most of your class give one answer you accept it because you feel they are likely to be right.

  -It is a cognitive process as it is to do with what you think.

  -It leads to a permanent change in behaviour so is linked to internalisation.

  -It is most likely to occur in a new situation where people will look to others for how to behave since the majority is more knowledgeable.
• AO3: What research support is there for NSI as an explanation for conformity?

  When Asch interviewed his participants, some said that they conformed because they felt self-conscious giving the correct answer and they were afraid of disapproval. When participants wrote their answers down, instead of saying them out loud, conformity fell to 12.5%. This is because giving answers privately meant there was no normative group pressure. Also in Asch's group size variation conformity rose significantly when there were three confederates due to the group pressure. This shows that at least some conformity is due to a desire not be rejected by the group for disagreeing with them.
• AO3: What research support is there for ISI as an explanation for obedience?

  In Asch's task difficulty variation he increased the difficulty of the line-judging task by making the standard line and the comparison lines more similar to one another in length which made it harder for the genuine participants to see the difference between the lines. Asch found that conformity increased- as it was unclear to the participants what the right answer was naturally they looked towards others for guidance and assumed that the others were right in their answer and that they were wrong as ISI explains. This shows that ISI is a valid explanation for conformity since the participants acted in the way ISI would predict and conformed with the majority's behaviour.