 Asch 1951

Conformity
 Jenness 1932

Majority view
 Sheriff 1936 Social Norms

Conformity- a type of social influence in

which individuals change their attitudes,
beliefs or behaviour
In order to adhere to existing social norms –
Baron et al 2006

Majority influence

Types of conformity

1) Internalisation- individual accepts majority group view and believes that view to be correct.

-Private acceptance-person conforms to other people’s behaviour in genuine belief that they are right.
- Private belief + public behaviour = coincide

- Follow up study of Sherif 1936- his findings suggest that in ambiguous situations people rely on
each other to decide what is right and then they stay with the view.
-

2) Compliance- where a person conforms to other peoples behaviours/attitudes but does not believe them to be
correct.
-go along with other peoples view
-‘keep peace’
-to avoid conflict
-public compliance

-Private beliefs + public behaviour = deviate

Explanations for conformity - People follow social norms/rules

- How people are expected to behave in social situations

 Deutsch and  Normative social influence compliance

Gerard 1955 -people conform to maintain peace and to avoid rejection
-result of normative influence = people publicly comply
-privately they disagree or hold different views e.g asch’s experiment, after the
 Anderson et al participant was asked why he/she conformed: wanted to please experimenter,
1992-Normative maintain group harmony

 Baron et al 1996-  Informational social influence internalisation

informational -conformity to majority-information
-results in private acceptance of the majority view
- high informational influence when in an ambiguous situation e.g sheriff 1936
- people need to be sure or desire to be right as often as possible –deutsch and
Gerard 1955