social influence

conformity

A change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined group pressure from a person or group of people.

Asch’s study procedure (NSI)

• Participants: 123 American male students.

• Each participant was in a group with 6–8 confederates (actors who knew the real aim).

• They were shown a standard line and three comparison lines, and asked to say aloud which line matched the standard.

• The real participant answered second to last.

• On 12 of 18 trials, confederates gave the same wrong answer to see if the real participant would conform to the group's incorrect response.

Asch’s findings

• On the critical trials, participants conformed 32% of the time.

• 75% conformed at least once.

• When interviewed, many said they conformed to avoid rejection, even though they knew the answer was wrong

Variables investigated by Asch

Group size	Conformity increased up to 3 confederates, then levelled off.
Unanimity	When one confederate disagreed, conformity dropped to ~5%.
Task difficulty	Harder tasks increased conformity (informational social influence).

strengths of Asch’s study

+Highly controlled lab experiment: easy to replicate.

• Results highlighted the power of conformity in group settings, providing valuable insights into social influence.

• Clearly demonstrated normative social influence.

weaknesses of Asch’s study

-Artificial setting may limit ecological validity.

• May have caused demand characteristics as participants knew they were in a study and may have gone along with what they expected

• Ethical concerns regarding deception of participants.

• Do not generalise to real world situations

-Limited application

• The participants were all American men

• Other research suggests women may be more conformist, possibly because they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted

• Similarly in collectivist cultures (China) where the social group

Types of conformity

• internalisation

• identification

• complaince

internalisaion

• a deep type of conformity where we take on the majority belief because we accept it

• permenant

• public and private

identification

• a moderate type of conformity where we act in the same way as the group because we value it and want to be a part of it

• we don’t necessarily agree with everything the group believe

• want acceptance

compliance

• A type of conformity that involves simply going along with others in public

• But privately not changing personal opinions and behaviours

• behaviour stops as soo as group pressure stops

expalanations for conformity

Deutsch and Gerald developed a two process model arguing that there are two main types of reasons people conform

• informational social influnce

• normative social influence

informational socal influence

• conform when we are uncertain about what behaviour are right/wrong

• conform because of superior knowledge of others because we want to be right

• likely to happen in ambigious and new situations

• cognitive process

• leads to internalisation

normative social influence

• conform because we want to avoid being rejected

• a need for companionship

• occurs because we want to be liked by others and gain social approval

• likely to occur with strngers

• emotional process

• leads to companionship

strengths of the explanations of conformity

+RESEARCH SUPPORT FOR NSI

• When Asch interviewed his participants, some said they conformed because they felt self conscious giving the correct answer and they were afraid of disapproval

• however when participants wrote their answers down conformity fell to 12.5%

• this is because giving answers privately meant there was no normative group pressure

• this shows that atleast some conformity is due to a desire not to be rejected by the group for disagreeing with them

+RESEARCH SUPPORT FOR ISI

• Lucas found that participants conformed more often to incorrect answers they were given when the maths problems were difficult

• this is because when the problems were easy the participant knew in their mind but when the problems were difficult the situation became unclear

• the Pps did not want to be wrong so they relied on the answers that were given

• this shows ISI is a valid explanation of conformity because the results are what ISI would predict

weaknesses for explanations of conformity

-DOES NOT TAKE INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES INTO ACCOUNT

• Some people are greatly concerned with being liked than others

• such people are nAffiliators, Mcghee et al found those students who were nAffiliators were more likely to conform

• This shows NSI underlies conformity for some people more than it does for others

• there are individual differences in conformity that cannot be fully explained by one general theory of situational pressures

Zimbado’s prison study aim

To investigate how people conform to social roles, especially the roles of prisoner and guard

Zimbardo’s procedure

• Conducted at Stanford University.

• 24 psychologically healthy male volunteers were randomly assigned to the roles of guards or prisoners.

• A mock prison was set up in the university basement.

• Guards were given uniforms, batons, and sunglasses. Prisoners were arrested at home and given numbers instead of names.

Zimbardo’s findings

• The study had to be stopped after 6 days (planned for 2 weeks).

• Guards became increasingly abusive and authoritarian.

• Prisoners became passive, depressed, and anxious.

• Both groups quickly conformed to their assigned roles.

strengths of zimbardo’s study

+CONTROL OVER KEY VARIABLES

• The study was a lab experiment with careful control of variables:

  • Participants were randomly assigned to roles (guard or prisoner), reducing individual personality differences.

• This increased the internal validity of the study — we can be more confident that behaviour was due to the situation (social roles), not personality

+RWA

• The study has been used to explain real-life examples of how people conform to social roles, such as:

  • Abu Ghraib prison abuse (US military prison in Iraq), where soldiers abused prisoners under similar role pressures.

• It helped highlight the dangers of unchecked authority and the importance of ethical treatment in institutions like prisons

Weaknesses of Zimbado’s study

-MAJOR ETHICAL ISSUES

• Participants were subjected to psychological and emotional harm:

  • Some prisoners showed signs of extreme stress, anxiety, and depression.

  • Zimbardo himself acted as the prison superintendent and failed to protect participants properly.

• There was inadequate informed consent — participants weren’t fully aware of how distressing the study would be.

• Right to withdraw was unclear due to the immersive nature of the experiment.

-LACKS POPULATION VALIDITY

• All participants were young, male, American college students.

• The results may not generalise to:

  • Females

  • Older people

  • Other cultures

• This limits the external validity of the findings.

Obedience

• an individual follows a direct order

• the person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour is not forthcoming

Aim of milgram’s study

to investigate how far people would go in obeying an authority figure, even if it meant harming another person.

procedure of milgrams study

• Participants were told they were part of a study on learning.

• They were assigned the role of "teacher" and instructed to give electric shocks to a "learner" (actually an actor) for every wrong answer.

• Shocks increased in voltage up to 450 volts.

• The learner (out of sight) pretended to be in pain and eventually stopped responding.

• If participants hesitated, the experimenter (authority figure) encouraged them to continue

findings of milgrams study

• all went up to 300v

• 12.5% stopped at 300v

• 65% went all the way up to 450v

• many Pps were showing signs of stress

• CONCLUDED that American people were not different to German people

Strengths of milgram’s study

+PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

• Helped shape policies and training in areas such as the military, law enforcement, and medical ethics (e.g., understanding when professionals might follow harmful orders blindly).

+RESEARCH TO SUPPORT

• Many replications (e.g., Burger, 2009) found similar obedience rates, suggesting the findings are robust and reliable.

• Cross-cultural replications (e.g., in Germany, Australia) also support his conclusions, though rates vary slightly

• Replicable with consistent results

• supports Milgram’s original findings about obedience to authority and demonstrates the findings were not just due to special circumstances

Weaknesses of Milgram’s study

-LACK ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY

• The artificial lab setting and the task (delivering fake electric shocks) don’t reflect real-life situations.

• Some argue participants may have guessed the shocks weren’t real, which could reduce the study’s validity (demand characteristics)

-SAMPLE BIAS

• Participants were all male, aged 20–50, and recruited via newspaper ads in the U.S.

• This limits generalisability, especially to women, different age groups, and non-Western cultures.

situational varaibles of milgrams study

• change of location to a run down office went down to 47.5%

• touch proximity: teacher forces learners hand onto a plate obedience went down to 30%

• uniform variation: experimenter played member of the public obedience went down to 20%

agentic state

where a person sees themselves as an agent for someone else, meaning they feel no personal responsibility for their actions because they believe they are following orders from an authority figure

autonomous state

when a person acts according to their own free will and takes full responsibility for their actions

binding factors

psychological mechanisms that reduce the moral conflict and anxiety a person feels when obeying authority, allowing them to continue obeying orders even if those orders conflict with their personal conscience

• they help people ignore their problems

legitimacy of authority

refers to the extent to which an authority figure is perceived as having the right to give orders and expect obedience based on their social role, position, or institutional status

destructive authority

refers to the extent to which an authority figure is perceived as having the right to give orders and expect obedience based on their social role, position, or institutional status.

Strengths for obedience: situational explanations

+RESEARCH SUPPORT

• Milgram’s study supports the role of the agentic state as the experimenter is responsible to blame is anything were to happen to the learner

• this shows that once pps percieved they were no longer responsible for their own actions, they acted more easily as the experimenter’s agent, Germas Milgram suggested

+ONE STRENGTH OF THE LEGITIMACY EXPLANATION IS THAT IT IS A USEFUL ACCOUNT OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN OBEDIENCE

• Mann et al found that 16% of Australian women went all the way up to 450v in Milgram’s study

• however German participants were seen to be at 85%

• this shows that in some cultures authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals

• This reflects the ways that different societies are structured and how children are raised to percieve authority figures

Limitations of obedience: situational explanations

-A LIMITED EXPLANATION

• the agentic shift doesn’t explain many findings about obedience

• It doesn’t explain Rank and Jacobson’s study - they found that 16 out of 18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive drug to a patient- the doctor was an obvious authority figure but almost all the nurses remained autonomous as many of Milgram’s participants

• This suggests that the agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience

-CANNOT EXPLAIN ALL DISOBEDIENCE

• In the nurses study most of them were disobedient despite working in a rigidly hierarchical authority structure

• this suggests that some people may just be more or less obedient than others

• it is possible that innate tendencies to obey or disobey have a greater influence on behaviour than the legitimacy of an authority figure

dispositional explanation

• any explanation that highlights the importance the individual’s personality

• such explanations are often contrasted with situation explanations

Authoritarian personality

• a type of personality that Adorno argued was especially susceptible to obeying people in authority

• such individuals are also thought to be submissive to those of higher status and dismissive of inferiors

Adorno’s procedure

• Adorno et al. (1950) wanted to understand the psychological basis of obedience to authority, especially after WWII.

• They studied over 2,000 American middle-class, white males.

• Participants completed several questionnaires, the most famous being the F-scale (Fascism Scale).

• The F-scale measured authoritarian personality traits, such as respect for authority, belief in traditional values, and hostility toward outgroups

Adorno’s findings

• People who scored high on the F-scale were:

  • More obedient to authority figures.

  • Had rigid beliefs in right and wrong.

  • Showed contempt for people of lower status (social hierarchy).

  • Identified strongly with their own social group (in-group favoritism).

• These individuals often had strict, disciplinarian upbringings with harsh punishment — which Adorno believed contributed to their personality type

strengths of obedience: dispositional explanation

1. Research Support – Adorno et al. (1950)

• Adorno found that individuals who scored highly on the F-scale were more likely to:

  • Obey authority

  • Be prejudiced

  • Display rigid, hierarchical thinking
    ✅ Suggests a measurable link between authoritarian traits and obedience.

2. Real-World Applications

• Helps explain obedience in historical events, like why some people followed orders in Nazi Germany.
  ✅ Gives insight into how personality traits can contribute to destructive obedience.

weaknesses of obedience: dispositional explanation

1. Limited Explanation – Ignores Situational Factors

• Many obedience studies (e.g., Milgram) show that context (like proximity or uniform) strongly influences obedience.
  ❌ The dispositional explanation overlooks the powerful role of the situation

2. Political Bias in the F-Scale

• The F-scale is criticised for being biased toward right-wing ideologies and ignoring authoritarianism on the left.
  ❌ Lacks political neutrality, reducing validity.

resistance to social influence

• refers to the ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or to obey authority

• this ability to withstand social pressure is influenced by both situational and dispositional factors

social support

• the presence of people who resist pressures to conform or obey can help others to do the same

• these people act as models to show others that resistance to social influence

locus of control

refers to the sense we each have about what directs events in our lives

internal locus of control

• they believe that the things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves

• e.g if you do well in an exam its because you worked hard

external locus of control

they believe the things that happen are outside their control

evaluate social support (resistance of social influence)

+REAL WORLD RESEARCH SUPPRORT

• Albrecht evaluate Teen Fresh Start USA, an eight week programme to help pregnant adolescents aged 14-19 resist peer pressure to smoke

• social support was provided by a slightly older mentor or ‘buddy’ were significantly less likely to smoke than a control group of participants who didn’t have a ‘buddy’

• shows that social support can help young people resist social influence as part of an intervention in the real world

+RESEARCH SUPPORT FOR DISSENTING PEERS

• Gamson’s participants were told to produce evidence that would be used to help an oil company run a smear campaign

• the researchers found higher levels of resistance in their study than Milgram did in his

• this is because the Pps were in groups so could discuss what hey were told to do-29 out of 33 rebelled

• this shows that peer support can lead to disobedience by undermining the legitimacy of an authority figure

evaluate locus of control (resistance to social influence)

+RESEARCH TO SUPPORT

• Holland repeated Milgram’s baseline study and measured whether Pps were internals or externals

• he found 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level, wheras 23% of externals did not continue

• this shows internals showed greater resistance to authority in a milgram-type study

• this shows that resistance is atleast partly related to LOC, which increases the validity of LOC as an explanation of disobedience

-IS EVIDENCE THAT CHALLENGES THE LINK BETWEEN LOC AND RESISTANCE

• data was analysed from American locus of control slides conducted over a 40year period

• the data showed that over this time span people became more resistantto obedience but also more external

• if resistance is linked to an internal locus of control, we would expect people to have become more internal

• this suggests that locus of control is not a valid explanation of how people resist social influence

minority influence

• a form of social influence in which a minority of people persuades others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours

• leads to internalisation or conversion, in which private attitudes are changed as well as public behaviours

consistency

Consistency refers to the degree to which a minority group maintains the same beliefs or message over time (diachronic consistency) and among its members (synchronic consistency)

commitment

refers to the extent to which a minority shows dedication to their position, often by making personal sacrifices or taking risks to support their cause.

flexibility

refers to the ability of a minority group to adapt their views or negotiate, rather than being rigid or dogmatic in their position

social cryptoamnesia

people forget the origins of the change and the events that led to change

snowball effects

overtime increasing numbers of people switch from the majority to the minority

strengths of minority influence

1. Supporting Evidence – Moscovici et al. (1969)

• In the classic blue-green slide study, Moscovici demonstrated that a consistent minority influenced participants to give the same incorrect answer on 8.42% of trials.

• When the minority was inconsistent, conformity dropped to 1.25%.
  ✅ Shows that consistency is a powerful factor in minority influence.

2. Explains Real-World Social Change

• Examples include the suffragette movement, civil rights campaigns, and LGBTQ+ rights. These all started with minority groups who were consistent, committed, and eventually influenced the wider society.
  ✅ Shows that minority influence is not just theoretical — it has real-world applications

weaknesses of minority influence

1. Artificial Research – Low Ecological Validity

• Much of the research (e.g., Moscovici’s blue-green slide study) involves artificial, trivial tasks with no real consequences.

• Judging slide colours in a lab does not reflect real-life social influence, such as political activism or civil rights movements.
  ❌ This limits how well the findings generalize to complex, real-world situations.

2.Cultural Bias in Research

• Most studies are based on Western, individualist cultures, where standing out is more socially acceptable.

• In collectivist cultures, people may be less open to minority influence and more focused on group harmony.
  ❌ Limits the cross-cultural generalisability of the findings

social influence

• the process by which individuals and groups change each other’s attitudes and behaviours

• includes conformity, obedience, minority influence

social change

• this occurs when whole societies, rather than just individuals, adopt new attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things

• examples include accepting gay rights, women’s suffrage

lessons from minority infuence research

• draw attention

• consistency

• snowball effect

• social cryptoamnesia

strengths of social influence and social change

1. Research Support for Minority Influence → Social Change

• Studies like Moscovici et al. (1969) show that consistent minorities can influence the majority, even in controlled lab conditions.

• Real-life examples like the civil rights movement or suffragettes started as minority groups and led to widespread societal shifts.
  ✅ Demonstrates that minority influence is a credible explanation for how social change can begin

  2. Useful for Social Campaigns

  • Understanding how social influence works can help design effective campaigns (e.g., anti-smoking, climate action, equality).

  • Concepts like consistency, commitment, and social norms can be applied to create lasting change.
    ✅ Enhances the practical value of psychological theories in public health and social policy

weakness of social influence and change

1. Methodological Issues in Supporting Research

• Many foundational studies (e.g., Moscovici’s slide study, Asch’s line study) use artificial, lab-based tasks with low ecological validity.

• Judging slide colours or matching lines doesn’t reflect real-life complexity of social movements.
  ❌ Findings may not generalise to actual social change situations like civil rights or climate protests

2. Limited Consideration of Cultural and Social Contexts

• Most theories and studies are based on Western, individualist cultures where personal opinion and independence are valued.

• In collectivist cultures, conformity to group norms may be stronger, and dissent (minority views) less tolerated.
  ❌ Limits the cross-cultural validity of social influence explanations of change