conformity

• 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
• Types of conformity (according to Herbert Kelman)


  • Internalisation
  • Identification
  • Compliance
• Internalisation


  When a person genuinely believes and accepts a group's views, resulting in a private as well as a public change of opinions/behaviour. Behaviour and beliefs become part of the way they think and are present even when not with the group.
• Internalisation


  • Religion
• Compliance


  Going along with others in public, but privately not changing personal opinions/behaviours, usually to gain the approval of others and avoid their disappointment. The behaviour is simply to fit in with a group and once away from the group, behaviour and opinions will be back to 'normal'.
• Compliance


  • Laughing at a joke you don't find funny
• Identification


  A person conforms to the behaviours/attitudes of a group because there is something they value about the group. They want to feel more a part of the group. Identification has elements of both compliance and internalisation - they identify with a group/role model and change their behaviours publicly to be part of the group (compliance), and they also accept some/all of the behaviours they are adopting as true (internalisation).
• Identification


  • Wearing a Chelsea FC shirt to feel a part of the group (Chelsea fans); School uniforms, work uniforms etc.
• Normative social influence


  Need: Humans have a basic need to want to feel accepted, approved and liked and as a member of a group. Being rejected is painful. This may have an evolutionary origin - survival was more likely if we belonged to social groups.
• How normative social influence leads to conformity

  In order to gain acceptance by others we often conform to the behaviour of those groups or say that we agree with their viewpoint. Equally, we do not wish to go against the group so that we are not rejected by them.
• Type of conformity from normative social influence


  Compliance - individuals conform to a group publicly in order to be accepted/liked, but privately they may not agree with what they actually said/did.
• Example of normative social influence


  • Peer pressure and smoking. Individuals want to feel part of a group and accepted by a group. As such, when a group of people (often teenagers) apply pressure on someone to try smoking, it can be difficult for those individuals to not conform. It leads to compliance, as the individual may changes their behaviour (try smoking), but privately they realise it is not a good idea and a silly thing to do.
• Informational social influence


  Need: Humans have a basic need to feel confident that our beliefs, ideas and behaviours are correct. This makes us feel more in charge of our lives.
• Research support for normative influence

  • One study that supports NSI is by Linkenbach and Perkins (2003). 
  • They found that adolescents exposed to the simple message that the majority of their age peers did not smoke were less likely to take up smoking.
  • This shows that people shape their behaviour out of a desire to fit in with their peer group.
• How informational social influence leads to conformity


  When we are unsure and not confident in what to do, or our opinions, we seek other people's opinions or observe their behaviours. We evaluate our behaviours and opinions against others. In some circumstances we conform to others because they genuinely believe them to be right.
• Type of conformity from informational social influence


  Internalisation - we do not just conform in behaviour alone (public), we also change our (private) point of view.
• Important factors for informational social influence


  • The situation is ambiguous i.e. the right course of action is unclear and we are less certain what to do.
  • We believe others to be experts i.e. we believe that others are more likely to know what to do.
• Deutsch & Gerrard (1955) argued that there are two reasons why people conform – known as the dual process model.
• Research support for informational social influence

  • There is research to support ISI as an explanation for conformity.
  • Wittenbrink and Henley (1996) found that participants exposed to negative information about African Americans  (which they thought was the view of the majority) later reported more negative beliefs about a black individual.
  • This suggests that we are influenced by others when we believe they know more about an issue than we do.
• • ISI, or Information Social Influence, is a theory that explains conformity in various tasks. However, it is limited as it does not account for all types of tasks, such as subjective judgments and information social influence. For instance, determining objective information like population size can be done using statistics, while making judgments on subjective issues requires accepting information from others. Therefore, ISI cannot explain all instances of conformity.
• • strength of NSI research - real world applications, such as making people behave more responsibly
  • Nolan et al. (2008) investigated the effect of social influence on people’s energy conservation behaviour (trying to use less energy, e.g. gas and electricity)
  • found that - the behaviour of neighbours had the strongest impact on their energy conservation behaviour
  • suggests - NSI plays an important role in promoting energy conservation behaviours and this could be used in campaigns promoting energy conservation by demonstrating what the positive behaviours of the majority.
• • A strength of ISI is that is explains how political opinions are shaped
  • Research shows that people’s judgements about politicians can be influenced by their knowledge of others’ reactions
  • Fein et al. (2007) found judgements about presidential candidates in a debate were influenced by how others were supposedly reacting towards them
  • This suggests that we are influenced by others when we believe they have more information than we do, which supports the ISI explanation of conformity