Conformative Social Influence

Conformity is a type of social force related with a change in behavior in order to fit in or to be correct within a group in society (Meyer &Anderson, 2000 and Losh, 2003). This change is in response to real physical presence of others or imagined group pressure. Mcleod, (2007) interpreted conformity as one of the major influencing factor in young society. Horn (1970) in his study states that people conform to group pressure because of two types of social pressure: informational social influence and normative social influence. Higby(1993) used normative versus informative interpersonal influence scale to explore the same in teen apparel shopping and found that teens receive more informative and normative influences from parents during special

Hamilton and Warden (1966) reported in their study that boys’ clothing behavior was influenced more by their families. These finding does not support Feltham (1998) who reported that females have demonstrated a higher degree of familial influence as compared to males. Whereas insignificant differences were observed by Lee (2006), between younger and older tweens when compared for family acceptance which shows that influence of family remains the same. Chaudhary (2014) in her study on Indian tweens found family as an important influencing power along with peers in tweens fashion purchase

Buying behavior was investigated in tweenage girls by Grant and Stephen (2005) in four focus groups. Influence of parents, peers and media on buying behavior was studied; the findings showed that mothers were very influential in choosing clothes for schools and special occasions. Also, the girls constantly sought advice from their mothers about price and quality, and even what to wear. (Lee, 2006) he/she further observed that younger tweens were more likely to be influenced by their mothers in deciding what to wear than were older tweens. Mothers constantly play an important role in the overall development of their children (Grant and Stephen, 2005; Lee, 2006). A little influence of tweens’ fathers was observed in clothing purchase and selection by Sancheti (2009), only after mother and siblings among family members. Khan and Khan (2008) in their study suggested that males were more influenced by their parents as they tend to shop for designer label apparel more frequently with these groups than their female counterparts. Grant & Stephen, (2005) found that the peer group of siblings and friends strongly influenced tween girls’ fashion preferences and clothing consumption behavior. In converse Koester & May (1985) and Khan and Khan (2008) indicated that siblings’ influence was minimal among