Because humans are naturally social and learn through observation in addition to the mechanism of instinct, major aspects of human psychology and behavior are shaped by social influence. For example, language, gender roles, dressing, 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 caused by another person. Conformity is an area of ​​social influence and has been extensively studied to understand how and why people conform. The topic was explained through various social perspectives supported by both classical and current research. This article aims to discuss theories of conformity and evaluate research on the topic. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Before delving into the theoretical approaches of conformity, it is important to understand the meaning and types of conformity. McLeod, S. (2016) defines conformity as “a type of social influence that involves a change in beliefs or behavior to fit in with a group.” Change is in response to real or imagined group pressure. Pavitt, C. & Curtis, E. point out that an individual conforms if he accepts an action that is socially acceptable or favored by the majority. People conform to satisfy the desire to fit in (normative conformity) or the urge to be correct (informational conformity). There are three types of compliance: compliance, internalization and identification. Conformity is when an individual follows other people's expectations or desires to obtain a favorable reaction (be rewarded or avoid punishment). Therefore, when a person conforms, he or she does not necessarily agree with the idea. Internalization is a genuine acceptance of social norms. An individual accepts an action or idea because it is intrinsically rewarding and is consistent with his or her beliefs. Identification occurs when an individual accepts social influence to establish or maintain a self-defined relationship with the influencer. People tend to follow the desires of parties they regard highly and wish to please. There are numerous theoretical perspectives of conformity, but social comparison and cognitive dissonance approaches are the widely accepted approaches. Social comparison theory was inspired by the unanimous agreement among scholars that people 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 fairness. People often weigh their beliefs against norms or standards to judge themselves. In the pursuit of self-evaluation, people find other people, normally not too divergent from them, who serve as standards against which to judge themselves. When people are not satisfied with their self-evaluation, they are very likely to change the particular belief, behavior value. Cognitive dissonance theory was based on the premise that people are not always influenced by the desire for correctness but also by the need to be consistent. Festinger argued that the social comparison approach is ambiguous because the connection between a person's desire to evaluate himself and the tendency tochange is unclear. It argues that a person can be satisfied with the positive or negative evaluation and therefore maintain the status quo. Cognitive dissonance can be expressed in conflicting beliefs. For example, a person may state: “I like my parents” and also “I don't agree with my parents”. A person may like his parents, but this does not guarantee that he will conform to their wishes. A person may reject the social influence of his parents to be consistent. Various classical experiments have been performed to explain the concept of compliance. 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 asking participants to say how far the dot moved, even if it didn't. When reporting individually, participants gave different answers: between 20 cm and 80 cm. Sherif then paired two people with similar estimates and one with a significantly different estimate. When asked again to say how far the light moved, 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 with that of three other lines of different lengths. In the first and second trials, all participants unanimously agreed on a line whose length matched the subject line. However, Asch manipulated the experiment and made the control group agree on the wrong line. This change influenced the participants who felt the need to be corrected by conforming to the majority opinion. 75% of participants succumbed to social pressure to conform and gave the wrong answer. From the results, Asch concluded that people comply when the size of the majority increases as the stimuli become more ambiguous. Compliance has also been demonstrated in current studies. Mallison, D. & Hatemi, P., conducted a study to investigate the effects of information and social conformity on opinion change, with a focus on political opinions (2018). Some observational and experimental research has shown the relationship between social influence and political behavior. The findings suggest that people tend to consult highly knowledgeable individuals in their social contexts to make various political decisions such as voting. Therefore, highly informed parties in social networks play the role of influencing others on appropriate engagement in politics. Building on this knowledge, Mallison, D., and Hatemi, P. placed Pennsylvania State University participants in a deliberative environment to explain the effects of conformity and private acceptance on opinion change. Using a control group, a political topic relevant to the local community was raised and participants were subjected to united opposition to the political views expressed. 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 opinion during or after the discussion. The results are consistent with Asch and Sherif's experiments which showed that people are more likely to conform when placed in ambiguous situations. Stallen, M. & Sanfey, A. reviewed.