Two Types Of Conformity Essay

Topic: Discuss two types of conformity.

An individual is said to conform if they choose a course of action that is favoured by the majority of other group members, is is considered socially acceptable. In contrast, an individual would be described as deviating if they chose to behave in a way that was not socially acceptable or that the majority of group members did not appear to favour. Because the individual is clearly influenced by how the majority think to behave, this form a social influence is sometimes referred to as majority influence. The fact that individual goes along with the majority in public does not indicate that they have changed their private attitudes or beliefs (attitude conversion). Although attitude conversion can follow exposure to a majority position, it is more usually compliance rather than private acceptance.

Kelman (1958) proposed three types of conformity

Compliance

Internalisation

Identification

There are two types of conformity that we are required to study:

-Compliance

-Internalisation

Compliance is when exposed to the views or actions of the majority, individuals may engage in a process of social comparison, concentrating on what others say or do so that they can adjust their own actions to fit in with them. Because identification with the majority is desirable, if they may simply go along with the majority without analyzing why such a difference exist. This result in public compliance, with little or no private attitude change.

Internalisation is when exposed to the reviews of other members of a group; individuals are encouraged to engage in a validation process, examining their own beliefs to see if they or the others are right. Close examination of the group’s position may convince the ind...

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...riginal study to find out which variables had significant effects on the amount of conformity:

The difficulty of the task:

In one variation, Asch mad the differences between line lengths much smaller (so that the “correct” answer was less obvious and the task more difficult). Under these circumstances, the level of conformity increased. More recent research has taken this relationship a little further. Lucas et al. (2006) found that the influence of task difficulty on conformity is moderated by the self-efficacy of the individual. These researchers found that when exposed to maths problems in an Asch-type task, high-self-efficacy participants remained more independent that low-self-efficacy participants, even under conditions of high task difficulty. This shows that situational differences and individual differences are both important in determining conformity.