Social influence

• Social influence is the scientific study of the ways in which people's thoughts, feelings and behaviours are affected by other people and situations.
• Internalisation is a deep type of conformity where we take on the majority view because we accept it as correct. It leads to a far-reaching and permanent change in behaviour even when the group is absent.
• Identification is a moderate type of conformity where we acting the same way as the group because we value it and want to be part of it. However, we don't necessarily agree with everything the group/majority believes.
• Compliance is a superficial and temporary type of conformity where we outwardly go along with majority view, but privately disagree with it. The change in behaviour only lasts as long as the group is monitoring us.
• Zimbardo 1955 believed people may conform because of real or imagined group pressure
• Deutsch and Gerard conducted the two process theory, which shows why people may conform. It consists of informational influence and normative influence.
• Informational influence suggests people may conform because they believe in superior knowledge or judgement of others. This leads to people changing their private opinion.
• Normative influence suggests people may conform because they want to be liked or respected by other members of the group. This doesn't lead to people privately changing their opinion.
• ISI is a cognitive process because it's to do with what we think as it leads to permanent changes in opinion/behaviour. It is most likely to happen in situations that are new to a person or where there is some ambiguity. It can also occur in crisis situations where decisions have to be made quickly and we assume the group is most likely to be correct.
• NSI is an emotional process as we don't want to appear foolish and want to gain social approval, leading to temporary changes in opinions/ behaviour. NSI is most likely to occur in situations with strangers as you may be concerned with rejection or with people you know as you want to gain social approval. It also may be more pronounced in stressful situations where we have a greater need for social support.
• Support for NSI:

  • Asch interviewed his p's, in which some said they conformed because they felt self-conscious in giving the correct answer and were afraid of social disapproval. When p's wrote their answers down conformity fell to 12.5% as giving answers privately meant there was no normative group pressure. This shows that some conformity is due to the need of social approval and not wanting to be rejected by the group.
• Support for ISI:

  • Lucas et al asked students to give answers to mathematical problems that were easy or more difficult. There were more conformity to incorrect answers when they were difficult, especially for students who rated their maths skills as poor. This because when problems were easy, students knew their own mind but when problems were hard there was some ambiguity, in which the p's relied on the answers they were given, showing ISI is a valid explanation to conformity.
• Limitations of conformity explanations:

  • However there are individual differences in conformity that cannot be fully explained by one general theory of situational pressures e.g. naffiliators who are more likely to conform found by McGhee and Teevan in a sample of students.