types of conformity

• Compliance


  Agreeing with the group externally but keeping personal opinions, a temporary change in behavior
• Identification

  Behaving according to group membership, private values change only when with the group
• Internalization

  Personal opinions genuinely change to match the group, a permanent change
• Informational social influence (ISI)


  Looking to the majority for guidance on how to behave correctly, results in internalization
• Normative social influence (NSI)

  Wanting to appear normal and be approved by the majority, results in compliance
• Asch 1951 study found 32% of participants conformed to the incorrect group response</b>
• Jenness 1932 study found individuals' second private guesses moved closer to the group's guess, providing evidence for ISI
• Some people are more able to resist social pressure to conform


  • Those with an internal locus of control
• Conformity increases with task difficulty due to the role of ISI
• Conformity is lower online compared to Asch's face-to-face study, suggesting demand characteristics in Asch
• Conformity


  A type of social influence where a person yields to group pressures and changes their behaviour or opinion as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group
• Types of conformity (Kelman)


  • Internalisation
  • Identification
  • Compliance
• Internalisation


  Making the beliefs, values, attitude and behaviour of the group your own (the strongest type of conformity, often occurs as a result of informational social influence)
• Identification


  Temporary/short term change of behaviour and beliefs only in the presence of a group (middle level)
• Compliance


  Following other people's ideas/going along with the group to gain their approval or avoid disapproval (lowest/weakest level of conformity)
• 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
• 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
• NSI and ISI may not be completely exclusive, as suggested by Deutsch and Gerrard's 'Two Process Model'
• It may be more beneficial to look at NSI and ISI as complementary, as opposed to mutually exclusive mechanisms