What is Conformity?

Conformity involves people behaving in a certain way because of the pressure excerted on them by other group members.

We tend to conform for 2 Reasons:

Informational Social Influences (Conformity)

  • ‘The desire to be right’

  • This is when we go along with other people because we do not know how to behave, we believe the group knows more than us

  • We look at others for guidance

  • We don’t want to be seen as stupid

Normative Influence

  • ‘The desire to be liked’

  • This is where we go along with other people because we want to be liked

  • We want to fit in

  • We don’t want to stand out

Types of Conformity

  1. Compliance - conform by doing something that you privately agree with, the least enduring most superficial, no real change in attitude, only behaviour

  2. Internalisation (Informational) - conforming by doing something that you privately agree with, there is no internal conflict over behaviour, the deepest level of conformity

  3. Identification - conform to the behaviour of a person or group because you admire them, change behaviour publicly and privately, show behaviour for a short amount of time

Situational Factors

  • Status of the group - especially when informational conforming is applied

  • Size of majority - the larger the majority the more likely you are to conform

  • Unanimity of majority - the more agreement amongst the majority, the more likely you are to conform

  • Task difficulty/ambiguity - the more difficult or ambiguous the task, the more you are likely to conform