Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms.

People conform in order to follow social norms and to avoid social exclusion. Conformity can be readily observed, such as when people engage in similar styles of dressing and speaking, similar preferences in music and food, and similar patterns of political beliefs. One study of a type of social conformity was conducted by psychologist Solomon Asch. His basic findings were that: 75% of the test subjects conformed by agreeing with groups incorrect answer at least once; 25% of them never conformed with the groups incorrect answers 5% of them always conformed and always agreed with the groups incorrect answer. When the three results were averaged, it was noted that the test subjects conformed to the incorrect answer 33% of the time. Conformity rate was significantly reduced when even one of the test subjects companions gave the right answer. This indicated that the pressure to conform was apparently far less when the control group was indecisive. Conformity depends upon no. of persons joined the group. If the group comprised of just him and a companion, he would always give the correct answer, but as the number of companions increased, and provided they all gave the same incorrect answer, so would the number of instances where he would answer incorrectly. In the written version of the test, subjects chose the correct answer 98% of the time. This indicated that, in most cases, they had deliberately chosen incorrect answers during the verbal test and had not just made mistakes.

This way, he demonstrated that the test subjects deliberately chose incorrect answers as they wanted to conform, as they did not want to be different but wanted to fit in. This choice of action -knowing that something is wrong but agreeing to it anyway indicates the extent of the pressure to conform. Social influence occurs when one's emotions, opinions, or behaviors are affected by others. It takes many forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales, and marketing. For eg.: People are influenced by someone and tend to follow who is liked and respected, such as a famous celebrity. Compliance strategies are relevant to numerous person-to-person interactions when persuasion is involved. One individual can use such techniques to gain compliance from the other, swayed person. The techniques have become a major asset to numerous forms of advertising, including Internet shopping sites by playing at psychological needs they are frequently successful in selling a product. Other practical examples include:

A child asking for an allowance raise with the foot-in-the-door technique

An individual doing someone a favor, hoping that the norm of reciprocity will influence that someone to lend a hand at a later date A lawyer using ingratiation and his or her perceived authority to persuade a jury.