An individual influences others in myriad ways, and those others influence the individual
in return. Social influence involves the changes in one’s attitudes, beliefs, feelings, and
behaviours, which result from other’s comments, actions, or the presence of others
(Gilovich, Keltner, & Nisbett, 2011). People shape each other’s attitudes and feelings,
sway their judgments and outlooks, and persuade one another to perform something else
instead of doing the current tasks (Forsyth, 2012).
A form of social influence that is more familiar is conformity. Forsyth (2012) defined
conformity as when a person’s opinions, judgments, or actions change to become more
consistent with those manifested by others. A classic study of Asch (1951) showed that
majority opinions could strongly influence an individual judgment (as cited in Koriat,
Adiv, & Schwarz, 2015). In other words, people often conform to social norms without
realizing that they are doing so. Furthermore, people express greater confidence in their
views when they learn that others hold the same views (Koriat, Adiv, & Schwarz, 2015).
If, however, they have different thoughts or beliefs from most people who have the same
thoughts or beliefs, they tend to conform as they have low confidence in themselves.
It is believed that the level of conformity is related to individualism and collectivism.
Hofstede (1980) suggested that individualists, particularly Westerners, are highly
independent, believing in individual decisions and their identity is determined by
individual achievement, whereas collectivists, particularly East Asians, are more
interdependent, believing in group decisions and emotional dependence on organisations
(Bond & Smith, 1996). Hofstede (2001) also proposed that the United Kingdom, the
