Since human beings are naturally social and learn through observation in addition to the instinctive mechanism, major aspects of human psychology and behavior are shaped by social influence. For example, language, gender roles, mode of dress, and taboos are formed based on an individual's cultural exposure. As a result, people develop attitudes, behaviors and values ​​consistent with their culture. Social institutions such as family, religious organizations, schools, communities and peers reinforce behaviors and attitudes. Therefore, social influence is the change in behavior brought about by another person. Conformity is an area of ​​social influence and has been widely studied to understand how and why people conform. The topic has been explained through various social perspectives supported by classic and current research. This article aims to discuss theories of conformity and evaluate research on the subject. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Before delving into the theoretical approaches to compliance, it is important to understand the meaning and types of compliance. McLeod, S. (2016) defines conformity as “a type of social influence involving a change in belief or behavior to fit into a group.” Change is a response to real or imagined group pressure. Pavitt, C. and Curtis, E. emphasize that an individual conforms if he or she conforms and accepts an action that is socially acceptable or favored by the majority. People conform to satisfy the desire to fit in (normative conformity) or because of the need to be correct (informational conformity). There are three types of compliance, namely compliance, internalization and identification. Conformity is when an individual follows the expectations or desires of others to obtain a favorable response (being rewarded or avoiding punishment). So when a person conforms, they are not necessarily agreeing with the idea. Internalization is a true acceptance of social norms. An individual accepts an action or idea because it is intrinsically rewarding and consistent with their beliefs. Identification is when an individual accepts social influence to establish or maintain a self-defining relationship with the influencer(s). People tend to follow the desires of people they like and want to please. Many theoretical perspectives on conformity exist, but social comparison and cognitive dissonance approaches are the widely accepted approaches. Social comparison theory draws on the unanimous agreement among researchers that individuals conform to satisfy the psychological need for self-evaluation. Festinger, a major contributor to the social comparison perspective, argued that people conform for the sake of accuracy. People often evaluate their beliefs against norms or standards to judge themselves. In their quest for self-evaluation, people find others, normally not too divergent from themselves, who serve as standards against which they can judge themselves. When people are unhappy with their self-evaluation, they are very likely to change their beliefs, values, or behavior. Cognitive dissonance theory is based on the principle that people are not always influenced by the desire for accuracy, but also by the need to be consistent. Festinger argued that the social comparison approach is ambiguousbecause the connection between a person's desire to evaluate themselves and the tendency to change is unclear. He argues that a person can be satisfied with positive or negative evaluation and thus maintain the status quo. Cognitive dissonance can be expressed through contradictory beliefs. For example, a person may state: "I love my parents" and also: "I disagree with my parents." A person may love their parents, but this does not guarantee that they will conform to their parents' desires. A person may reject the social influence of their parents in order to be consistent. Various classical experiments have been carried out to explain the concept of conformity. In 1935, Sherif conducted an experiment to demonstrate that people tend to conform to group norms when they find themselves in an ambiguous or unclear situation. The autokinetic effect experiment involved projecting a small dot of light onto a screen in a dark room and asked participants to indicate how far the dot moved, even if it didn't. During individual reports, participants gave variable responses: between 20 cm and 80 cm. Sherif then gathered two people with similar estimates and one with a significantly different estimate. When asked again how far the light had traveled, people with very different estimates in the groups changed their answers to match other members' estimates. Sherif concluded that uncertainty pushes people to conform to group norms. Another classic conformity experiment was performed by Asch who asked participants to compare the length of a single vertical line to three other lines of varying lengths. On the first and second trials, all participants unanimously agreed on a line whose length matched the subject line. However, Asch manipulated the experiment and caused the control group to agree on the wrong line. This change influenced participants who felt the need to be right by conforming to the majority opinion. 75% of participants gave in to social pressure to conform and gave the wrong answer. From these results, Asch concluded that people conform when the size of the majority increases when stimuli become more ambiguous. Compliance was also demonstrated in current studies. Mallison, D. and Hatemi, P., conducted a study to investigate the effects of information and social conformity on opinion change, with a particular focus on political opinions (2018). Some observational and experimental research has shown the relationship between social influence and political behavior. The results suggest that people tend to consult highly informed individuals in their social context to make various political decisions, such as voting. Therefore, highly informed social media parties play the role of influencing others on appropriate engagement in politics. Building on this knowledge, Mallison, D. and Hatemi, P. placed participants at Pennsylvania State University in a deliberative environment to explain the effects of conformity and private acceptance on opinion change. Using a focus group, a political topic relevant to the local community was raised and participants were presented with unified opposition to their expressed political views. Participants' opinions were recorded privately before the group discussion, during the discussion, and after the discussion. The researchers found that 62% of participants changed their minds during or after the discussion. The results are consistent with the experiments.