Types and Explanations

• What is internalisation?

  Internalisation is the deepest level of conformity. Here a person changes both their public behaviour (the way they act) and their private beliefs. This is usually a long-term change and often the result of informational social influence; they continue these behaviours even when the group is absent
• What is identification?

  Identification is the middle level of conformity. Here a person changes their public behaviour (the way they act) and their private beliefs, but only while they are in the presence of the group they are identifying with. This is usually a short-term change and is often the result of normative social influence.
• What is compliance?

  Compliance is the lowest level of conformity. Here a person changes their public behaviour (the way they act) but not their private beliefs. This is usually a short-term change and often the result of normative social influence.
• What is informational social influence?

  Informational social influence is the phenomenon where individuals conform to the opinions or behaviours of others because they believe that those others have more accurate knowledge or information.
• What is normative social influence?

  Normative social influence is the tendency to conform to the group's norms in order to fit in and gain social approval.
• What is the two process theory to conformity?

  Deutsch and Gerard (1955) developed a two process theory arguing that there are two reasons for people to conform - to be right (informative social influence) or to be liked (normative social influence)
• What is research support for ISI?

  Lucas et als research on task difficulty following Asch's study supports ISI because people conformed more to incorrect answers when maths questions were more difficult. This is due to people being uncertain about something or going through a new experience and having research to understand this increases the validity of the theory. It can be difficult to separate ISI and NSI as they operate together in most situations rendering the distinction between the two as useless
• What is research support for NSI?

  Asch's research supports the theory behind NSI because the participants wanted social approval from the other participants. However, when answers were written down, conformity decreased as participants could be anonymous and not worry about pressures of others disliking their response. Fiske (2014) suggested stimuli from Asche does not resemble tasks in every day life, lacking mundane realism.
• What is a limitation to the explanation of conformity?

  Some people may be nAffiliators and have a strong desire to be liked by others so will be more likely to conform. However Asch (55) found students less likely to conform than other participants and this could be due to them regularly being a part of an environment where they are used to giving different answers, so they have less chance of wanting to be right all the time. Confident people are also less likely to conform due certainty in there answers. This limits explanations of conformity as it could be down to the individual