What do we do when we are uncertain about how to think or act in a situation? One solution is to look to the attitudes and actions of other people. Informational influence (also known as informational social influence) is a type of conformity in which individuals use the attitudes or actions of those around them as cues to correcting their own behavior. It is contrasted with normative influence, where people conform in order to be liked or accepted by others. Informational influence and normative influence are the two types of influence outlined in Morton Deutsch and Harold Gerard's dual-process theory of social influence.

Characterized as influence to accept information obtained from others as evidence about reality, informational influence is based on a desire to make ...

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