3 Levels of Conformity, NSI + ISI

What is conformity?

A change in a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people

What is a norm?

The behaviours, clothing and opinions that regulate the behaviour of groups → people will often conform to these in order to gain social approval or to appear correct

What are Kelman (1958)’s 3 levels of conformity?

1. Compliance

2. Identification

3. Internalisation

What is compliance?

A person changes their views/actions to fit in with the group, but there is no change in the person’s underlying attitude

What is identification?

A person conforms to the opinions/behaviours of a group because they feel admiration for the group → publicly accepts the group’s norm, but private life may differ

What is internalisation?

Deepest level of conformity - a person accepts group’s norms both publicly and privately → they see their own previous beliefs as wrong and the group’s right

What is Deutsch & Gerald (1955)’s two process theory?

Two main reasons people conform: informational social influence and normative social influence

What is ISI?

Conformity based on the desire to be correct → leads to internalisation

Where does ISI mostly occur?

• In a new situation

• When there is ambiguity

• Quick decisions

What is NSI?

Conformity based on what is normal for a social group out of a desire to be socially approved → leads to compliance

When does NSI mostly occur?

• Situations where you don’t want to be rejected by strangers

• When you want social approval from friends

• Stressful situations where you are in a greater need of social support

What research support is there for NSI?

• When Asch interviewed his participants, some stated they conformed because they were worried about disapproval if they gave the wrong answer

• When participants were asked to write their answers down, conformity dropped to 12.5% → giving answers privately meant there was no normative group pressure

• Shows some conformity may be due to NSI

What research support is there for ISI?

• Lucas et al. found that participants conformed more often to incorrect answers when the problems were more difficult → participants were more confident when the questions were easier

• Shows ISI to be a valid explanation for conformity

What limitations does ISI + NSI have in real life?

• Asch found conformity was reduced when there was presence of allies

• Allies may have reduced NSI as they provide social support, but they may have reduced ISI as they provide an alternate source of information

• Hard to separate the two - likely both operate together in real-life conformity situations

What limitations does NSI have?

• ‘nAffiliators’ are people who are more concerned about being liked by others

• McGhee & Teevan (1967) found that students who were nAffiliators were more likely to conform

• Shows NSI is more important for conformity than others → individual differences in conformity cannot be explained by one general theory