Hello students and welcome to the next lesson in our AS Psychology course. Today we're going to be looking at conformity. What is conformity? Conformity is when people alter their behaviour in order to match more closely the behaviour of a majority of others. So it's pretty much giving in to group pressure in a certain situation.
For example, if all of your friends are smoking in a group and offer you to smoke as well, some people may conform and smoke with them even if they don't want to smoke in the first place. Compliance is a type of conformity where one goes along with a group behavior without changing personal opinions or their way of thinking whenever they're conforming. It also lasts only as long as group pressure exists. So for example if we stick with the example of smoking, if you're smoking with a group that offered you a cigarette and you actually didn't like the cigarette but you may still do it in order to be able to go along with the group behavior and you're still not going to like it as you actually commit that act because it's not going to change personal opinions.
So while you're doing it you may think this is wrong and you won't like it. Identification is another type of conformity and this is a type of conformity where you change your behaviour in order to be like an individual group. So this time, unlike compliance, you're not just going along with it, this time you actually want to be like the figure who's smoking. And it lasts only as long as the group remains attractive or the person.
So for example, you would smoke just because you want to look like perhaps your favourite singer in a band. because you think he is cool for smoking. So by smoking you now think that you look cool.
Internalization is the third and final type of conformity and this is a type of conformity where you change your behavior based on a group's belief. It's a permanent form of conformity as it also changes your way of thinking. For example, you may be stopping to smoke because a group of people made you think that it's actually bad for you.
That makes you... also think that it's bad and therefore you are conforming to the group that isn't smoking and you're also changing your way of thinking about the cigarettes and therefore you may think it's disgusting and it's bad for your health and therefore you don't want to smoke anymore. Is conformity a conscious effort? Well conformity can occur if you're either conscious or if you're subconscious. Compliance generally happens when you're subconscious.
Later in the course we're going to see that we have a human need in order to fit into a group. and that is something subconscious which can lead you to conform. Identification however generally happens consciously, you want to look like that person or that group so therefore you act like it and conform to certain norms in order to be able to associate yourself with it.
And internalization can generally be either, so you can be subject to internalization where you change your way you behave and change the way you think in order to match that of someone consciously because you want to perhaps. be similar to that and get the same objectives out of the action which you're going to conform to and it can also be subconscious where perhaps you actually want to you know subconsciously Change so you see this kind of offer from being able to conform to something and therefore you do it Here are some questions on conformity and the three types of conformity compliance identification and internalization Have a go at answering these on another sheet of paper by pausing a video and hit play whenever you're ready to see the answers Here are the answers, if you got these right congratulations, I'd advise you to move on to the next video which will be on Ash's Line Theory, a study on conformity and its effects. As always, thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.