Social Influence Practice Test

The key idea is why people conform: to fit in or to be correct. Normative social influence is about wanting to be accepted by the group, so it typically produces outward, public conformity—your behavior changes to match others, even if your private beliefs don’t. Informational social influence relies on the belief that others have better information, so you adopt their view as your own, which can lead to true, private acceptance of the belief. That’s why the best choice says normative influence aims to gain acceptance and yields public conformity, while informational influence uses evidence about reality and can yield private acceptance. The other descriptions mix up which type relies on evidence about reality or which type leads to private versus public changes, and they’re not accurate.