Types of social influence: informative and normative

Conformity, or the change in behavior or beliefs due to peer pressure, can arise from two main types of social influence: informational social influence and normative social influence.

Understanding these two pathways is crucial for analyzing why people conform.

Informational Social Influence: The Need to Know Right

Informational social influence occurs when we conform because we see other people as a source of information to guide our behavior.

We assume that others' interpretation of an ambiguous situation is more correct than our own and use this to decide how to act.

This need to know "what is right" is especially strong in novel, confusing, or crisis situations, where we are unsure how to behave.

Sherif's experiment on the autokinetic effect is a classic example of informational social influence.

Faced with the ambiguity of the motion of the spot of light, participants used estimates from others to form a group norm, which they then internalized as the correct answer.

For informational influence to be more likely, the situation must be ambiguous, it must be a crisis requiring immediate action, or others must be perceived as experts or reliable sources of information.

Normative Social Influence: The Need to Be Accepted

Normative social influence is based on our fundamental need to be accepted and liked by others, and to avoid social rejection or disapproval.

We conform to the group's social norms (the implicit or explicit rules about acceptable behaviors, values, and beliefs) in order to "fit in" and be a part of it.

Asch's line-comparison experiment illustrates normative social influence.

Many participants conformed to the incorrect majority answer, not because they believed it to be correct, but because of a fear of appearing different, being ridiculed, or being excluded from the group.

In this case, conformity is more public than