Conforming - adopting attitudes, beliefs or behaviours due to real or imagined group pressure. Majority influence suggests that people want to be liked, they don't want to go against others for fear of rejection.
- Asch's research showed that conformity levels were affected by the size of the group; with just one confederate the naive participant was swayed very little, with three confederates they conformed 31.8% of the time.
- There are two types; Normative social influence (driven by the desire to fit in) and Informative social influence (driven by the desire to be right).
- Smith and Mackie (1995) suggest reasons why the majority is so influential, there are deeper discussions, varied opinions and more confidence when you know that most people agree with you.
- Kalven and Zeisel (1966) found that out of 215 juries with an initial majority, 97.2% then went on the reach a unanimous decision.
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