Conformity to Majority Influence

Conformity to Majority Influence

Types of Conformity

• Compliance- Fitting in with others to gain approval. Public acceptance.
• Internalisation- Going along with others because you have accepted their point of view. Public and private acceptance.
• Identification- Going along with others because you have accpeted their point of view but only beacuse of a desire to be like them.

Research into majority influence- Asch (1956)

• Aim- To see if the 'real' participant would conform to the behaviour of the confederates.
• Procedure- 123 male American undergraduates were tested. Asch showed a series of lines to participants seated around a table. Partcipants always answered in the same order. The confederates were instructed to give the same incorrect answer on 12 of the 18 trials.
• Findings- On the 12 critical trials, 36.8% of the responses given by…