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There are two very important aspects that are used to define group behavior. These areknown as conformity and compliance and are both prevalent in all types of socialgroups. Although they both sound very similar, they are two distinct types of behaviors.Conformity exists within a group when a member is known to change their attitude orbelief in order to become equal with others in the group. An individual who tends to

conform must be obedient and compliant and in order to adjust, individual mustacknowledge and attribute another individual as having the legitimacy and credibility toinfluence their own and the groups behavior, indirectly making them the leader.Without this leader, conformity will be less evident towards the groups goals.

On the other hand, the concept of compliance is similar to conformity, however they dodiffer slightly. In order to comply or for compliance to occur within social groups, anindividual must adapt his/her actions to anothers wishes or rules whereas on the otherhand, a conforming individual must have a disposition that allows them to yield to theothers. Acts of compliance are occurring in peoples lives on a daily basis. A simple act ofcompliance that can be referred to is responding favorably to an explicit or implicitrequest to perform a task offered by another individual. An explicit request can beexplained, as a direct request for donations and an implicit request is promotionaladvertisement of products without directly asking for a purchase.

An effective method of gaining compliance is through rational persuasion andinspiration. Although an individual is asking another to perform a task, he/she is notasking the person to agree or disagree with the task at hand neither are they attemptingto change the others beliefs but simply requires the task to be performed. This is whatdifferentiates the acts of compliance and conformity. The central concept of conformityis that the person being influenced by a group changes their attitudes and/or beliefs inorder to fit in whereas the central aspect of compliance is simply the achievement of aspecified task.

Commonly known researcher in the field of psychology of persuasion, Robert Cialdinioutlined a set of compliance techniques that are also ways that individuals areinfluenced to comply with the demands or desires of others. There are six importantfactors that influences the likelihood of compliance to a request, they are as follows:

1. Reciprocity the need individuals feel to reciprocate or return a favor. Forexample if someone does something for you, like lowering the price of a product,

then the individual begins to feel more obligated to do something in return forthem, in this case buying the product.2. Commitment If an individual makes a small commitment or if they agree to

something either like behavior or simply a statement of belief, this makes themmore like to comply and commit to similar requests.

3. Scarcity Individuals hate to feel like they cant have something and also valueopportunities more when they are less readily available, thus people desire scareobjects more. This explains the existence of last chance and limited time onlysales.

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accepted. The second request is likelier to be accepted because the individual feels asthough the other person has already lowered their expectations and requirements toaccommodate them.

Door-in-the-face technique is displayed in a research carried out by Cialdini et al. (1975)

Students on a university campus were asked by Cialdini and his team who were posingas representatives of the County Youth Counseling Program whether they were willingto chaperone a group of juvenile delinquents on a one day trip to the zoo, 83% of thestudents refused. The second time students were stopped and asked to sign up asvolunteers to work for two hours each week as counselors for a minimum of two years.Again, no one agreed to volunteer, however when the refusals were followed withrequests to escort the delinquents to the zoo, the acceptance rate raised to 50% asstudents agreed to serve as chaperones.

There are several other experiments that have also been conducted to display the door-in-the-face technique. Some particularly known ones are the Miller et al. (1976) andCialdini and Ascani (1976).

Miller at al. (1976) sent a request for volunteers with a job of two hours of work perweek at an agency, again for two years and then they sent a smaller request thatshowed a compliance of 76%. When the smaller request was asked independently only29% showed compliance. Having observed the show-up rate of these volunteers, 85%volunteers who turned out the first request and complied with the second showed up,where as the second group where only the small request was asked, only 50% showedup out of those that complied.

Door-in-the-face technique can also be seen on a general basis where a salespersonlowers the price of a product because the customer believes its too expensive. It ismore likely that the customer will now purchase the product seeing the compromise ofthe salesperson.

Another factor that greatly influences compliance is commitment. This is explained as aconsistency with previous behaviors or choices. It is argued that once people choosesomething or make a decision, they are most likely to encounter personal andinterpersonal pressures in order to behave consistently with their selection. Experimentby Kurt Lewin in 1951 explained that behavior is driven by goal gradients that explainsthat the longer an individual is committed to something, they are less likely to abandonit in the long run.

A technique commonly used to get individuals to commit to something is the foot-in-the-door technique that involves people to commit to something small in hope ofpersuading them to agree to greater deal that is yet to come. A study explaining foot-in-the-door technique was conducted by Dickerson et al. in 1992, this study aimed to getuniversity students to conserve water during dorm showers. The students were asked tosign a poster saying, Take shorter showers. If I can do it, so can you! after which they

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were made to take a survey designed to make them think about the amount of waterthey used while having a shower. Students who had signed the poster and taken thesurvey had shorter shower times with an average of 3.5 minutes that was comparativelylesser than shower times across the dormitories on an entirety. Some people howeverargue that these students could have also signed the poster as they may have had prior

commitment to the cause.

Another common technique used to display commitment is known as the low-ballingtechnique that was demonstrated by Cialdini et al. (1974) in a university background.Students from a first year psychology class were requested to volunteer for a studybased on cognition that was scheduled to meet at 7 a.m. Although these students werevery enthusiastic about the subject, only 24% students actually agreed to leave thecomfort of their warm beds in the morning in support of this research study. On theother hand, a second group was requested for the same favor, however they were nottold the time of the survey. In this study, 56% agreed to participate, however when theywere told that they were to meet at 7 a.m. and they could back out if they wished to,none of them backed out due to their commitment. 95% students showed up on theactual day from those who had promised to come for the 7 a.m. meeting.

Another controversial practice of a compliance technique is known as hazing which is aseries of initiation rites or practices in order to be able to join an exclusive groupexamples of which are sports teams, college/ university fraternities. Several stories ofhazing about students dying after being exposed to extreme temperatures, drinkingthemselves into coma or practically digging their own graves has not been able to stopthe practice of hazing. This behavior is so widespread due to the fact that it is used tomake an individual realize that if they make a decision to join a group, they must

rationalize that it is worth it in order to be involved. The individual also begins to feel asense of accomplishment after they complete the process of hazing and prove theirloyalty to the group.

Aronson and Mills (1959) conducted an experiment to test whether a person who hasendured trouble or pain to join a group will value it more than one who has got an easyaccess to the entry. In the study conducted, female college students were asked to joina sex discussion group. The females, some of whom had to go through an extremelyembarrassing initiation, however on the other hand others were allowed to join with noinitiation. When the women participated in a meeting involving confederates who weretrained to be boring and uninteresting, the women who bore the pains of the initiationceremony surprisingly found the meeting valuable compared to those who entered withno initiation who found the meetings absolutely pointless.

All the factors combined with a specific focus on reciprocity and commitment explainsthe social influence of compliance.