Conformity: Types of Conformity Compliance

Conformity Types and Characteristics

• Compliance vs. Internalisation: Compliance involves changing behavior to fit in without changing internal beliefs, while internalisation involves adopting the group's beliefs as one's own.
• Social Role Demand: Conforming to the demands of a social role is known as identification.
• Public Compliance with Internal Disagreement: This occurs when individuals publicly change their behavior but privately disagree with the group, a form of compliance.
• Defining Internalisation: Internalisation is characterized by a genuine shift in beliefs, where the individual's actions align both publicly and privately with the group.

Studies and Theories

• Study on Compliance: Solomon Asch's study is commonly associated with the concept of compliance, investigating how individuals yield to group pressure.
• Identification vs. Internalisation: Identification involves changing behavior in the presence of a group to maintain relationships but does not necessarily result in internal belief change, unlike internalisation.

Influences on Conformity

• Normative Social Influence: This is driven primarily by the desire for approval or to avoid rejection from others.
• Compliance Connection: Normative social influence is typically associated with compliance as individuals conform to gain acceptance while potentially maintaining personal beliefs.
• Social Role Expectations: The term used for conforming to the expectations of a social role is identification.

Obedience and Influence Mechanisms

• Agency Theory: Proposes that people will obey authority figures due to a shift in responsibility from the individual to the authority.
• Asch's Investigation: Asch investigated factors affecting conformity by manipulating group size, unanimity, and task difficulty to see how these variables influence individual decisions.
• Informational Social Influence: The primary reason behind this influence is the desire to be correct or to gain accurate information from others in ambiguous situations.