Types of Conformity (AQA A Level Psychology) : Revision Note

Compliance, identification & internalisation

• One type of social influence in A Level Psychology is conformity

• Conformity is a phenomenon which involves someone changing, adapting or taking on new behaviours in order to fit in with the group

• Conformity could also be known as majority influence as people tend to want to conform to larger groups (safety in numbers)

  • Minority influence does happen but it is less common

Compliance

• Compliance is a type of conformity which involves:

  • agreeing with or behaving like the group publicly but disagreeing with or having different opinions to the group privately, e.g.:

    • Eating only vegetarian food with a particular group of friends, but continuing to eat meat when the group is not present

    • Laughing at a joke which the person does not find funny (and may in fact find offensive) because everyone else is laughing

• Compliance is the weakest type of conformity as it only involves surface and superficial change and it ceases when someone is not with the group

Identification

• Identification is a type of conformity which involves:

  • temporarily adopting the habits or attitudes and behaviours of a group if someone values the group and wishes to be included in it

  • conforming to the expectations required of a specific social role (e.g. police officers, nurses, teachers)

  • Some examples of identification include: 

    • Dressing in the same style as a group of people at college

    • Using similar verbal expressions and body language as a group of social influencers

• Identification results in short-term change as the individual is still not completely in agreement with the group (if only in private)

Internalisation

• Internalisation is a type of conformity which involves:

  • accepting and agreeing with the group publicly and privately

  • internalising the group's norms,e.g.:

    • Becoming wholly involved in the norms of a group, renouncing former beliefs (e.g. political, religious), possibly cutting ties with people from the past

    • Meeting a new group of people at college and changing personal styles, hobbies, attitudes etc. to align with the group

• Internalisation is the strongest type of conformity, leading to long-term change