Why People Conform
Normative Influence
The desire to be liked – when we conform to fit in with
the group because we don’t want to appear foolish or be left out.
For example a person may feel pressurised to smoke because the
rest of their friends are. Normative influence tends to lead to compliance because the person smokes just for show but deep down they wish
not to smoke. This means any change of behaviour is temporary. For
a study on this refer to Asch.
Informational Influence
An example of this is if someone was to go to a posh restaurant for the first time, they may be confronted with several forks and not know which one to use, so they might look to a near by person to see what fork to use first.
The desire to be right – when we conform because we are unsure of the situation or lack knowledge, so we look to others who we
believe may have more information than us. This explanation tends to lead to internalisation.
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