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Chapter 5 - Conforming and Converting
from Part II - Experimental Paradigms
Gordon Sammut, University of Malta, Martin W. Bauer, London School of Economics and Political Science
Book:

The Psychology of Social Influence

Published online:

19 December 2020

Print publication:

07 January 2021, pp 97-116
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Summary

Chapter 5 focusses on the social psychology of conformity, a classical topic of social influence. The chapter starts by reviewing a number of experiments that have demonstrated the human need for affiliation and belonging. This establishes the grounds for sociality that is a necessary precondition for human existence rather than a luxury add-on. It proceeds to review Asch’s classical conformity experiments, followed by Moscovici’s demonstrations of the conditions of minority influence. The chapter ends by considering conformity from a cultural psychology view, concluding that deviance and conformity are behavioural responses expressive of social representations, that is, sociocultural locale conditions. As such they are not explained by individual rational choice. The argument is made that conformity and dissident deviance function to maintain and to challenge the current common sense.