A-Level Psychology — Complete Course

Types and Explanation of Conformity

Paper 1 · Social Influence · Conformity

Compliance & internalisation

• Conformity — a form of social influence in which an individual changes behaviour, attitudes or expressed beliefs so they are more consistent with the position or norms of a majority group. The pressure can be real or imagined, and the change may be only public or may also involve a genuine private change in belief.
• Majority influence — another way of describing conformity: the individual is influenced by the position held by the larger group.
• Compliance — the weakest and usually most temporary form of conformity. The individual changes their public behaviour or stated view to fit the group, while privately continuing to disagree. Because the private belief has not changed, the behaviour often stops when group pressure is removed.
• Internalisation — the strongest and most durable form of conformity. The individual genuinely accepts the group's view as correct, so both public behaviour and private belief change. The new attitude can continue even when the group is absent.
• Normative social influence (NSI) — conformity caused by the desire to be accepted, liked or approved of, or to avoid rejection. It is especially likely when group membership matters to the person and commonly produces compliance.
• Informational social influence (ISI) — conformity caused by the desire to be correct. In uncertain or difficult situations, other people are treated as a source of information, so their judgement may be accepted as evidence about reality. This can produce internalisation.

Core Terms

Compliance — Public but not private acceptance. Internalisation — Public and private acceptance. NSI — Conformity for social approval. ISI — Conformity because others are believed to be correct.

What You Need To Know

• Compliance is a public change without a lasting private change. Internalisation is genuine public and private acceptance.
• Normative social influence (NSI) occurs because people want approval or want to avoid rejection; it often produces compliance.
• Informational social influence (ISI) occurs because people believe others are correct, especially in ambiguous or difficult situations; it often produces internalisation.
• Asch investigated conformity using an unambiguous line-judgement task and a unanimous majority.
• Group size: conformity rises as the majority becomes large enough to create pressure, then tends to level off.
• Unanimity: one dissenter can sharply reduce conformity because the majority no longer appears completely united.
• Task difficulty: harder tasks increase uncertainty, so ISI becomes more influential.

Evidence

• Asch's studies demonstrated that a unanimous majority can produce conformity even when the correct answer is obvious.
• Lucas et al. found greater conformity on difficult maths problems, especially among less confident participants.

Evaluation

• NSI and ISI are useful but can operate together rather than as completely separate processes.
• Conformity varies with culture and historical context. Someone agrees with friends' restaurant choice only to avoid standing out: compliance through NSI.

Common Mistakes

• Do not confuse compliance with internalisation.
• Do not treat ISI as simply 'copying others'.

Examiner Tip

• For application questions, quote the scenario feature that shows NSI or ISI. Conformity = compliance/internalisation; explanations = NSI/ISI; Asch variables = group size, unanimity, task difficulty.

Specification Detail

• Explain why Asch's unambiguous task is important: conformity occurred even when the objectively correct answer was obvious.
• Give separate worked examples for compliance and internalisation and explicitly state that compliance tends to stop when group pressure disappears.
• Treat NSI and ISI as explanations rather than types of conformity; explain that both can operate together.

Diagram