Types of conformity

Compliance

Superficial + temporary, outwardly go along with majority but inwardly disagree

Internalisation

Take on the majority view as we accept it as correct, private as well as public change of beliefs.

Normative social influence

Based off of need to be liked , agree with majority to gain approval, most likely to occur in stressful situations with strangers, and those we are most concerned with being approved by.

Informative social influence

Need to be right, agree with majority as we believe them to be correct, cognitive process, most likely to occur in new or ambiguous situations

Evaluation of explanations for conformity - research support for internalisation

Investigating mask wearing during Covid, one group of ps told that other people were wearing masks correctly, findings - these ps more likely to wear masks correctly compared to uninformed group.

Evaluation of explanations for conformity - research support for normative social influence

Study on smoking in adolescents, told that majority of people their age did not smoke. Findings - adolescents were then much less likely to take up smoking

Evaluation - hard to distinguish between compliance and internalisation

It’s possible that view has occurred in public but dissipates in private , so may not be internalisation