Conformity
- Created by: study-shauna
- Created on: 09-03-18 15:19
View mindmap
- Conformity is a type of social influence where you change your beliefs or behaviours in response to real or imagined social pressure.
- Types of conformity
- Compliance - individuals accept the influence of a group and go along with their beliefs to gain their approval or avoid their disapproval. This is only a change in their public views. E.g. saying you like rock music because the group you're with like rock music.
- Internalisation - individuals accepts influence because their group's views or behaviour is consistent with their own value system. This is acceptance of the group's view both public and privately. This isn't only in the presence of the group and is permanent. E.g. religion
- Identification - an individual adopts a behaviour or attitude because they want to be associated with a particular person or group. They change their public and private beliefs, but only whilst they are in the presence of that group. E.g. being a vegetarian because your flat mates are vegetarians, but eating meat when they're not there.
- Explanations for conformity
- Normative social influence - a desire to be right. They want to gain approval and acceptance from the group, so they tend to conform with the majority position. Humans are social beings. For this to occur, the individual must believe they are under surveillance by the group.
- Informational social influence - a result of a desire to be right - looking to others as a way to gain evidence about reality. This type of influence is more likely when the situation is ambiguous or where others are experts.
- Evaluation
- There are difficulties in distinguishing between compliance and internalisation. We assume someone who publicly agrees with the majority but disagrees in private is showing compliance, but it could be they have forgotten information from the group or gained new information, and that is why their agreement dissipates in private. Therefore it is difficult to define and measure public compliance and private acceptance.
- There is research support for normative influence. Schultz et al (2008) found that hotel guests shown the normative message that 75% of guests reused their towels each day reduced their own towel use by 25%. These studies support the idea that people change their behaviour to fit in with their reference group.
- There is research support for informational influence. Wittenbrink and Henry found people shown negative information about African Americans, which they were led to believe was the majority view, later reported more negative beliefs about black people. Therefore this shows that people look to others for information because they want to be right.
- Types of conformity
Comments
No comments have yet been made