Types and explanations

• Conformity


  A type of social influence where people change their behavior or beliefs to fit in with a group due to real or imagined group pressures / expectations
• Types of conformity (Kelman)


  • Compliance - where people conform to groups opinion publicly but privately disagree
  • Identification - confirming because we value the groups beliefs or opinion (Zimbardo's study)
  • Internalization - deepest level of conformity where the beliefs of the group become apart of the individuals belief system
• Explanations for conformity


  • Informational social influence (ISI) - A person has the desire to be right they conform because they aren't sure how behave
  • Normative Social influence (NSI) - A person has a desire to be liked, A person confirms because they want to be accepted by a social group
• Informational social influence (ISI)


  • There's research support from Lucas etc Al who gave participants easy and hard maths questions he found that conformity increased due to task difficulty which suggests that people conform in situations where they don't know the answer as we assume others know better than us
  • A limitation is there are individual differences perrin and spencer found less conformity in engineering students this shows people who are more confident or knowledgeable are less influenced by the majority
• Normative Social influence (NSI)


  • There's research to support normative social influence Asch interviewed participants and said they conformed to avoid rejection by others as when asch asked part to write the answer down conformity fell to 12.5% this supports NSI
  • A limitation is that there are individual differences McGhee and teevan found that naffiliators are more concerned of social approval than others and are more likely to conform this desire to be liked underlines conformity for some people more than others
  • A limitation is that it is unclear if NSI or ISI is at work as conformity was reduced when there was a dissenting partner in the Asch experiment this dissenter may reduce the power of NSI OR ISI by providing social support or an alternative source of information
• What are the three types of conformity

  Compliance, Identification, and Internalisation.
• Define Compliance in conformity.

  Type of conformity where an Individual publicly agrees with the group but privately disagrees. This change in behaviour only lasts as long as the group pressure is present
• Define Identification in conformity.


  Conforming to the group because they value the group and want to be part of it
• Define internalisation in conformity

  When a individual adopts the group beliefs because they genuinely accept them as correct this change is permanent
• Key differences between Compliance, Identification, and Internalisation.


  Compliance: Public change, private disagreement, temporary. Identification: Public and private change, temporary while associated with the group. Internalisation: Public and private change, permanent.