Conformity: Types and Explanations

Conformity is a change in a person's behaviour or belief as a result of real or imagined pressure from a group. In other words, it is yielding to majority influence — the person shifts towards the position held by most people around them.

Two features of that definition earn marks and are easy to overlook:

• The pressure can be real or imagined. Nobody has to tell you to change. Simply believing the group expects something is enough.
• Conformity is about the majority. It is a response to what most people think or do, which distinguishes it from minority influence and from obedience to a single authority figure.

The AQA specification splits this topic into two questions you must answer separately:

Question the exam asks	What it covers
What type of conformity is it?	How deep and lasting the change is: internalisation or compliance
What explains the conformity?	Why the person conformed: informational (ISI) or normative (NSI) social influence

Keeping "type" and "explanation" apart is the single most important habit for this topic. One describes the outcome; the other describes the cause.

Internalisation is the deepest form of conformity. The person genuinely accepts the group's viewpoint and takes it on as their own, changing what they believe both publicly and privately.

Because the belief has become part of how the person actually thinks, it does not depend on the group being there. This is the defining test:

With internalisation, the changed belief persists even when the group is absent. The person keeps holding the new view when no one is watching, because they are now convinced it is correct.

A worked scenario makes the depth clear:

• A student moves in with flatmates who are all committed to recycling and reducing waste.
• At first the student recycles to fit in, but over months they read about the issues, discuss them, and become genuinely convinced.
• A year later they have moved out and live alone, yet they still recycle carefully.

The change survived the loss of the group, so this is internalisation. The person did not just act differently in front of others; they now think differently.

Compliance is the weakest form of conformity. The person changes their public behaviour or the views they express to match the group, but their private opinion is unchanged. They go along with the majority without actually accepting its position.

The consequence is that the change is fragile:

Compliance lasts only as long as the group is present. Once the group pressure is removed, the person reverts to their original behaviour or opinion, because they never truly agreed in the first place.

Using the same recycling scenario shows the contrast:

• The student sorts their recycling carefully whenever a flatmate is in the kitchen.
• Alone at midnight, they quietly bin everything together, because they never believed it mattered.
• After moving out, they stop recycling entirely.

Only public behaviour changed, and only while the group could see it. That is compliance.

Feature	Internalisation	Compliance
Depth	Deep — genuine acceptance	Superficial — outward agreement only
Public view	Changed	Changed
Private view	Changed	Unchanged
Duration	Permanent	Temporary
Persists without the group?	Yes	No

(A brief note on the spec: earlier versions of AQA A-level Psychology listed identification as a third type of conformity. It has been removed from the current 7182 specification, so treat internalisation and compliance as the only two required types and do not present identification as one of them.)

Types describe how much a person changes. The explanations describe why. Deutsch and Gerard (1955) proposed a two-process model with two distinct reasons people conform, driven by two basic human needs: the need to be right, and the need to be liked.

Informational social influence (ISI) is a cognitive process. We conform because we want to be right. When we are unsure what to think or how to behave, we look to other people — particularly those we believe have more knowledge or expertise — and accept their judgement as evidence about reality.

ISI is most likely when a situation is:

• ambiguous — the correct answer is unclear
• novel — the situation is new to us
• a crisis — decisions must be made quickly
• one where others are experts

Because ISI works by convincing us of what is genuinely true, it tends to produce a change in what we privately believe.

Normative social influence (NSI) is an emotional process. We conform because we want to be liked and accepted and to avoid rejection. Humans have a fundamental need to belong, so we go along with a group to gain social approval, even when we privately disagree.

NSI is most likely when we are with people we value — friends or people whose approval matters — but it can also occur among strangers whose disapproval we still wish to avoid.

The two processes tend to lead to different types of conformity, and stating this link is exactly what higher-mark answers do.

Explanation	Underlying need	Process	Typical resulting type
ISI	To be right	Cognitive	Internalisation
NSI	To be liked	Emotional	Compliance

The logic is straightforward:

• ISI → internalisation. If you conform because you are persuaded the group knows the correct answer, you have genuinely changed your mind. The new belief becomes your own, so it persists.
• NSI → compliance. If you conform only to be accepted, you have not changed what you believe. You agree in public to fit in, then revert once the social pressure is gone.

Exam tip: whenever you explain a conformity scenario, name the explanation (ISI or NSI) and the type it produces (internalisation or compliance), then justify the link. Doing both is what turns a partial answer into a full one.

These are tendencies, not laws — a single situation can involve both processes at once — but the ISI–internalisation and NSI–compliance pairings are the expected starting point.

Strong exam answers develop each evaluation point using Point → Evidence → Explain.

There is research support for ISI. Lucas et al. (2006) asked participants to solve maths problems that were either easy or difficult. Participants conformed more to obviously incorrect answers given by others when the problems were difficult rather than easy, and this effect was strongest in those who rated their own maths ability as poor. This supports ISI, because people looked to others for the right answer precisely when the task was ambiguous and they doubted their own knowledge — exactly the conditions ISI predicts.

There is research support for NSI. In Asch's conformity studies many participants who went along with the obviously wrong majority later reported that they did so to avoid the group's disapproval, not because they thought the majority was right. When Asch had participants write their answers down privately rather than say them aloud, conformity dropped to about 12.5%. Removing the audience removed the fear of rejection, so conformity fell — which is what NSI predicts.

Individual differences limit NSI. NSI does not affect everyone equally. McGhee and Teevan (1967) found that people with a high need for affiliation — so-called nAffiliators, who strongly want to relate to others — conformed more often. This suggests the desire for acceptance behind NSI is a personal disposition rather than a universal drive, so NSI cannot fully explain conformity in people who care little about being liked.

The two processes are hard to separate. In practice ISI and NSI often operate together, which weakens the neat two-process distinction. For example, adding a dissenter in Asch's study reduces conformity, but it is unclear whether this is because the dissenter provides new information (reducing ISI) or social support that eases the fear of disapproval (reducing NSI). If the two cannot be cleanly told apart in real situations, the model may be an oversimplification.

1. Confusing compliance with internalisation

The private view is the deciding test. Compliance changes public behaviour only, with private opinion unchanged; internalisation changes the private belief too. If the change disappears once the group is gone, it is compliance, not internalisation.

2. Assuming all conformity is temporary

Only compliance is temporary. Internalisation is a genuine, lasting change that persists in the group's absence. Writing that "conformity fades when the group leaves" is only true for compliance.

3. Failing to link the explanation to the resulting type

Naming ISI or NSI is not enough on its own. Mark schemes reward connecting the explanation to the type it produces: ISI tends to lead to internalisation, NSI tends to lead to compliance. State the link and justify it.

4. Listing identification as a current-spec type

Identification is not a required type in the current AQA 7182 specification, which lists only internalisation and compliance. Giving identification as one of the two types can cost marks in a "types of conformity" question.

5. Mixing up ISI and NSI

ISI is cognitive — conforming to be right in ambiguous situations. NSI is emotional — conforming to be liked and avoid rejection. A quick check: if the person is unsure of the answer it is ISI; if they know the answer but go along to fit in it is NSI.