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Conformity can be defined as when a person alters their behaviour or personnal views to match those of the other people or a group.

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  • Essay length: 2013 words
  • Submitted: 25/04/2012
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AS and A Level Social Psychology

The first 200 words of this essay...

Conformity can be defined as when a person alters their behaviour or personnal views to match those of the other people or a group. There are lots of reasons as to why people conform, the desire and need to fit in and also be accepted by others. For example teenagers may go along with what their friends do when they themselves would have preferred to have gone elsewhere. (Jean-Marc Gross, Page 237)

This change involves the physical attendance of others or involves the pressure of social norms and expectations group pressure. This happens because we learn expectations of how we should behave in certain situations. This can also be described as Social Norms. We then conform to these expectations when a situation arises.

Conformity can be defined as "surrendering to group pressures" (Crutchfield, 1955).

Normative Social Influence is when people are unsure what to do in a particular situation, they then look to others who may be in the same situation and replicate their behaviour or answers. This is shown in the Asch experiment. Although the participant knew that the group had given the wrong answer, most of the participants agreed with the groups answer

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