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

Compliance & internalisation

• Conformity is a type of social influence which involves someone changing, adapting or taking on new behaviours to fit in with the group

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

  • Minority influence does happen, but it is less common

Compliance

• Compliance is a type of conformity that involves

  • agreeing with or behaving like the group publicly but disagreeing with or having different opinions from 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 ceases when someone is not with the group

Internalisation

• Internalisation is a type of conformity that 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