Some of your friends come to you with a letter of protest against a rule that has been recently announced i.e banning use of mobile phones in the school. Personally you believe that the rule is very sensible and should be enforced. Your friends have signed the letter and so you also agree to sign the letter. You have experienced which form of social influence?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Conformity
You personally think the ban on mobile phones is sensible, yet you sign the letter of protest because your friends have signed it.
Option (1) Compliance — Incorrect. In compliance, external conditions force the individual to accept the influence of a significant other; it also means behaving in a particular way in response to a request made by someone. You would comply if you signed only because a significant member asked you to, even without any group norm. Here you sign because the others have signed.
Option (2) Internalisation — Incorrect. Internalisation, in Kelman’s terms, is influence based on information-seeking: one accepts a view because one comes to believe it is right. You still believe the rule is sensible, so you have not taken the group’s view as your own.
Option (3) Identification — Incorrect. Identification is influence based on agreement-seeking or identity-seeking, wanting to be like a person or group one admires. The question says nothing about wanting to be like your friends; you only go along with what they did.
Option (4) Conformity — Correct. Conformity means behaving according to the group norm, i.e. the expectations of other group members. Agreeing to sign the letter because your friends have signed, against your own view, is the form of social influence called conformity.
Note: Conformity, with compliance and Kelman’s forms of social influence, was there in the chapter ‘Social Influence and Group Processes’ of the pre-rationalised NCERT, which NTA followed in 2023, and is not there in the NCERT book (2025-26). Hence this question has been picked from the pre-rationalised NCERT.
NCERT (Pre-rationalised): “Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience … Imagine the following situation in your school. Some of your friends come to you with a letter of protest against a rule that has been recently announced, i.e. banning use of mobile phones in the school. Personally you believe that the rule is very sensible and should be enforced. But you also know that if you do not sign the letter, you will lose many friends and get a bad name for not keeping ‘student unity’. What would you do in such a situation? What do you think most people of your age would do? If your answer is that you would agree to sign the letter, you have expressed a form of social influence called ‘conformity’ which means behaving according to the group norm, i.e. the expectations of other group members.…” “Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience … Kelman distinguished three forms of social influence, viz. compliance, identification, and internalisation. In compliance, there are external conditions that force the individual to accept the influence of the significant other. Compliance also refers to behaving in a particular way in response to a request made by someone. Thus, in the example described above, you may sign the letter with the thought that you were accepting the request, not because you agree with other students, but because you have been requested to do so by a significant member. This would be a case of compliance also called ‘external/public conformity’. Compliance could take place even without a norm. For example, a member of a community group for ‘clean environment’ requests you to put a sticker on your bike that reads, ‘Say No to Plastic Bags’. You agree to do so, not because of a group norm, or even because you personally believe in banning plastic bags, but because you see no harm or problem in putting such a sticker on your bike. At the same time, you find it easier to say ‘yes’ rather than ‘no’ to such a harmless (and eventually meaningful) request. Identification, according to Kelman, refers to influence process based on agreement-seeking or identity-seeking. Internalisation, on the other hand, is a process based on information-seeking.…” |