Briefly outline and evaluate normative social influence as an explanation for conformity. [4 marks]

Normative social influence (NSI) can be described as a desire to be accepted and/or liked by a group, which can lead a person to conform as this may be deemed as necessary to fit in with the group so that they can avoid rejection. Conformity is when a person changes their beliefs/behaviours because of social pressure, which may be real or just perceived. NSI stems from the need for an individual to be social and to associate with others.

An example of NSI can be seen in the Asch (1951) study about conformity, in which participants were shown 3 lines of varying heights as well as a comparison line and were asked to choose which line was the same height as the comparison line. There were confederates within the participant group who had decided upon which line to choose prior to the experiment, choosing the same incorrect answer for 12 out of 18 trials. It was found that 32% of participants conformed and chose the same incorrect line as the confederates for the 12 incorrect trials and that 75% of participants conformed at least once with the group’s incorrect answer. Some participants stated after the experiment that they didn’t believe the answers the rest of the group gave were correct, but they did not want to be seen as ‘peculiar’, which shows that they wanted to be accepted by the group (NSI) which led to them conforming to a different belief/behaviour (giving the same incorrect answer as the group).