Social Influence

Types & Explanations of Conformity

Conformity is where an individual’s private or public attitude is influenced by the majority.

Kelman suggested there are 3 types of conformity:

• Compliance: An individual conforms publicly but not privately to fit into a social group and avoid social rejection. This type is weak because the influence of the majority is short-lived.

• Identification: An individual conforms publicly and privately to be like a social role they admire. This type is moderate because the influence of the social role changes depending on context.

• Internalisation: An individual conforms publicly and privately because they genuinely believe the majority is correct. This type is strong because the influence of the majority is persistent.

One strength of understanding types of conformity is that it has practical applications in advertising and marketing strategies. Advertisers often use compliance and identification to influence consumer behaviour. For example, compliance can be seen in strategies that rely on celebrity endorsement, where individuals are encouraged to publicly agree with a product or brand to fit in with popular trends, even if they do not privately agree. Similarly, identification is used when marketers create campaigns that target specific groups, encouraging consumers to identify with a brand or lifestyle. This is a strength because it benefits the economy, because profit is made as a result of these psychologically evidenced advertising and marketing strategies.

One limitation of research into types of conformity is that it is difficult to distinguish between compliance and internalisation. This is because researchers typically rely on observing an individual’s outward behaviour which may not reflect their true private beliefs. For example, if someone outwardly agrees with a majority view but later disagrees privately, it might be assumed that they were only complying to fit in publicly. However, it’s also possible that they genuinely internalised the group’s views at the time but changed their mind later, perhaps due to new experiences or further reflection. This is a limitation because it means the criteria for these types of conformity are neither established nor reliable.

Another limitation of research into types of conformity is that it may not fully account for cultural differences, particularly in how identification operates. For example, research has found that identification appears to be more pronounced in collectivist cultures. This is potentially because these cultures value community, and finding a sense of belonging is common. This is a limitation because it suggests Kelman’s ideas are ethnocentric and cannot be generalised across different cultures, decreasing the external validity.

There are 2 explanations of conformity:

• Normative Social Influence (NSI): An individual conforms to fit into a social group as a result of social pressure. Compliance is always a result of this.

• Informational Social Influence (ISI): An individual conforms to be correct as a result of genuinely believing the majority is correct in a situation where uncertainty is high and social pressure is low. Identification or internalisation is always a result of this.

One strength of NSI and ISI as explanations of conformity is that there is supporting evidence. For example, Linkenbach and Perkins found that young individuals exposed to the simple message that the majority of people their age did not smoke were subsequently less likely to take up smoking, supporting the idea of NSI. Similarly, Lucas et al. found supporting evidence for ISI when asking participants to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths problem when unknowingly given answers from three confederates. They found that the participants conformed more often to incorrect answers they were given when the maths problems were ‘harder’. This is a strength because it increases the internal validity of both NSI and ISI as explanations of conformity.

One limitation of NSI and ISI as explanations for conformity is that research suggests they do not affect everyone’s behaviour in the same way. For instance, research found that students with a high need for affiliation were more likely to conform, suggesting they are more susceptible to NSI in comparison to individuals who value independence who may not conform as easily. This is a limitation because it highlights that both NSI and ISI are influenced by individual differences (e.g. personality traits), which means the two explanations cannot fully account for the varying levels of conformity observed across individuals.

Asch’s Research on Conformity

Aim: To investigate whether an individual will conform to the majority, even when the majority is obviously wrong.

Procedure: Asch asked his American male participants in the experimental group to judge line lengths in the presence of a group of confederates who gave the wrong answer. He used a control group who gave their answers privately to ensure the questions were easy; they had a 0.04% error rate.

Findings: 75% of participants in the experimental group conformed at least once, and there was a 32% conformity rate overall.

Conclusion: Asch concluded that a significant majority of people will conform to group pressure and social norms (NSI).

One strength of Asch’s research is that there is supporting evidence. For example, Lucas et al. found supporting evidence for ISI when asking participants to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths problems when unknowingly given answers from three confederates. They found that the participants conformed more often to incorrect answers they were given when the maths problems were ‘harder’. This is a strength because it increases the internal validity of Asch’s research as, in both studies, conformity increased when answers became more ambiguous.

Another strength of Asch’s research is that it was a laboratory study. This is because the experiment was conducted in a highly controlled environment where potential extraneous variables were controlled. This allowed Asch to find a clear cause-and-effect relationship between his IV (presence of confederates) and his DV (conformity). This is a strength because laboratory studies typically produce empirical findings, increasing Asch’s findings’ internal validity. However, laboratory studies suffer from a lack of ecological validity due to the artificial setting and a lack of mundane realism considering the task at hand, which prevents the generalisation of findings.

One limitation of Asch’s research is that it may have suffered from demand characteristics. This is because some participants may have realised the confederates were lying, leading to them guessing the aims of the study and perhaps manipulating their behaviour in accordance with what they perceive the research to be about. This is a limitation because it lowers the internal validity of Asch’s findings, as participants responding to demand characteristics means their behaviour that is being studied is no longer natural.

Another limitation of Asch’s research is that all his participants were American males. This is because a lack of variety in individual differences means findings and conclusions drawn from a study cannot be generalised to everyone. For example, Asch may have found otherwise if he had tested an all-female cohort. This is a limitation because it significantly decreases the external validity of Asch’s findings due to its androcentric nature as well as the population validity due to his under representative sample and oversimplified findings and conclusions.

Variables Affecting Conformity

Asch studied 3 variables that affect conformity:

• Group Size: When the group size increased, Asch found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity, meaning there was an initial increase in conformity that plateaued after a point.

• Unanimity: When one confederate disagreed with the majority, Asche found that reducing unanimity (agreement) decreased conformity.

• Task Difficulty: When making the lines more similar in length, Asch found that increasing task difficulty so that the answer became more ambiguous increased conformity.

Zimbardo’s Research on Conformity

Aim: To investigate the extent to which ordinary individuals would conform to their assigned social role of either prison guard or prisoner in a simulated prison environment.

Procedure: Zimbardo built a mock prison and acted as its Superintendent. He used random allocation to assign the roles of ‘guard’ or ‘prisoner’ to his American male participants. The prisoners were ‘arrested’ at their homes, blindfolded and strip-searched before being given uniforms and numbers that they were exclusively referred to as throughout the experiment.

Findings: The study ended after 6 days (supposed to be 14 days) due to the severe emotional suffering of the prisoners. This was a result of the prison guards taking their abuse too far (forced nakedness, solitary confinement, verbal abuse, etc) after prisoners tried to rebel multiple times however, this only resulted in them becoming increasingly submissive to their superiors.

Conclusion: Zimbardo concluded that situational factors and social roles have a significant influence on human behaviour, causing ordinary individuals to adopt abusive behaviours when placed in a position of authority.

One strength of Zimbardo’s research is that it was a laboratory study. This is because the experiment was conducted in a highly controlled environment (mock prison) where potential extraneous variables were controlled. This allowed Zimbardo to find a clear cause-and-effect relationship between his IV (participants’ roles) and his DV (conformity). This is a strength because laboratory studies typically produce empirical findings, increasing Zimbardo’s findings’ internal validity. However, laboratory studies suffer from a lack of ecological validity due to the artificial setting and a lack of mundane realism considering the task at hand, which prevents the generalisation of findings.

One limitation of Zimbardo’s research is that it breached multiple ethical guidelines. The prisoners were not protected from the emotional and psychological harm caused by the prison guards, who had no shame in humiliating their peers. Furthermore, some prisoners were refused their right to withdraw upon first request. This is a limitation because it means the rights of participants were not respected, and even though Zimbardo provided post-study counselling, many of the individuals involved suffered due to the psychological damage and trauma caused by the study.

Another limitation of Zimbardo’s research is that all his participants were American males. This is because a lack of variety in individual differences means findings and conclusions drawn from a study cannot be generalised to everyone. For example, Zimbardo may have found otherwise if he had tested an all-female cohort. This is a limitation because it significantly decreases the external validity of Zimbardo’s findings due to its androcentric nature as well as the population validity due to his underrepresentative sample and oversimplified findings and conclusions.

Another limitation of Zimbardo’s research is that it ignores individual differences. For instance, some of the guards may have had a more aggressive predisposition, leading to them taking to abusing the prisoners more naturally. This is supported by the fact that 1/3 of the guards were keen to be fair toward the prisoners in comparison to the others who were open to abusing their authority. This is a limitation because it significantly decreases the internal validity of Zimbardo’s findings because it suggests these findings may be overstated.

Explanations for Obedience

Obedience is when an individual obeys direct orders from someone they perceive to have authority over them.

A social-psychological explanation refers to the influence of others on an individual’s behaviour, whereas a dispositional explanation concerns an individual’s characteristics that may influence their behaviour.

There are 2 social-psychological explanations for conformity (SP) and 1 dispositional explanation for conformity (D):

• Agentic State (SP): Most individuals begin in the autonomous state, where they take responsibility for their actions however, they can then undergo what Milgram coined the ‘agentic shift’, which results in the agentic state. This is where individuals move responsibility onto the perceived authority figure they obeyed as a result of high moral strain and feeling powerless to obey, believing they are an ‘agent’. Sometimes individuals will rely on binding factors, which are aspects of a situation that allow the minimisation of the negative consequences of their behaviour (e.g. saying Milgram’s participants were foolish to volunteer).

• Legitimacy of Authority (SP): Individuals obey others whom they have been taught to perceive as being higher than themselves in the social hierarchy. In many cases, individuals expect there to be someone above them (e.g. Milgram’s participants most likely expected there to be an experimenter who would have authority over them in that situation).

• Authoritarian Personality (D): Adorno used a questionnaire called the F-Scale (‘potential for fascism’) to measure middle-class white Americans’ unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups. He called this the authoritarian personality, characterised by blind obedience to authority, excessive respect toward authority and enforcement of traditional values. This was tested on disobedient participants from Milgram’s study, and Elms and Milgram found that disobedient participants scored higher on the F-Scale, thus displaying a higher level of authoritarian personality.

One strength of social-psychological explanations for obedience is that there is supporting evidence for the agentic state. For example, most of Milgram’s participants resisted giving the shocks at some point, and often asked the experimenter questions about the procedure. One of these was ‘who is responsible if […] is harmed?’. When the experimenter replied ‘I'm responsible’, the participants often went through the procedure quickly with no further objections. This is a strength because it increases the internal validity of social-psychological explanations as, in Milgram’s study, teachers experienced an agentic shift and refused to take responsibility for their actions upon knowing the experimenter would take full credit, showing evidence of the agentic state.

One strength of social-psychological explanations for obedience is that it is a useful account of cultural differences. For example, Kilham and Mann found that only 16% of female Australian participants went up to 450V in a replication of Milgram’s study. However, Mantell found that 85% of German participants went up to 450V. This is a strength because it increases the internal validity of social-psychological explanations and supports the legitimacy of authority explanation by showing that obedience levels vary across cultures depending on how authority is viewed.

One limitation of dispositional explanations for obedience is that the F-Scale has some methodological issues. For example, it only measures the tendency towards an extreme form of right-wing ideology, meaning the authoritarian personality explanation fails to account for obedience in people who hold left-wing authoritarian beliefs. Christie and Jahoda argued that this is a politically biased interpretation of authoritarian personality. This is a limitation because it decreases the internal validity of dispositional explanations for obedience and cannot fully explain obedience across the political spectrum. Furthermore, using a questionnaire has its own set of limitations, such as potentially leading questions, overuse of jargon, etc, once again, decreasing the internal validity.

Milgram’s Research on Obedience

Aim: To investigate the extent to which ordinary individuals would obey an authority figure even when the orders are unjust.

Procedure: Milgram deceived his male participants by telling them this was a punishment and learning study. Each participant was paired with a confederate, and they were ‘randomly allocated’ the role of ‘teacher’ or ‘learner’, but the participant was always the teacher. Teachers were instructed by an experimenter in the room with them to give the learner electric shocks of increasing voltage every time they got an answer wrong. Each time the voltage increased, the confederates’ prerecorded reactions would become more dramatic, shouting and begging for the teacher to stop. Then, at 330V, they went silent to give the illusion that they were unconscious or even dead.

Findings: 65% of participants administered the maximum shock of 450V, and all participants went up to at least 300V.

Conclusion: Milgram concluded that situational factors and social roles have a significant influence on human behaviour, causing ordinary individuals to administer potentially fatal electric shocks when instructed to by an authority figure.

One strength of Milgram’s research is that it was a laboratory study. This is because the experiment was conducted in a highly controlled environment where potential extraneous variables were controlled. This allowed Milgram to find a clear cause-and-effect relationship between his IV (participants’ roles) and his DV (conformity). This is a strength because laboratory studies typically produce empirical findings, increasing Milgram’s findings’ internal validity. However, laboratory studies suffer from a lack of ecological validity due to the artificial setting and a lack of mundane realism considering the task at hand, which prevents the generalisation of findings.

One limitation of Milgram’s research is that it may have suffered from demand characteristics. This is because, according to Milgram, 25% of his participants realised the shocks were not real, leading them to guess the aims of the study and manipulate their behaviour in accordance with what they perceived the research to investigating. This is a limitation because it lowers the internal validity of Milgram’s findings, as participants responding to demand characteristics means their behaviour that is being studied is no longer natural.

Another limitation of Milgram’s research is that all his participants were male. This is because a lack of variety in individual differences means findings and conclusions drawn from a study cannot be generalised to everyone. For example, Milgram may have found otherwise if he had tested an all-female cohort. This is a limitation because it significantly decreases the external validity of Milgram’s findings due to its androcentric nature as well as the population validity due to his underrepresentative sample and oversimplified findings and conclusions.

Situational Variables Affecting Obedience

Situational variables are features of the physical and social environment which have the potential to influence individuals’ behaviour.

Milgram studied 3 situational variables that affect obedience:

• Proximity: When the teacher and learner were in the same room, Milgram found that increasing their proximity decreased obedience. Similarly, when orders were given over the phone to teachers or teachers had to physically force the learner’s hand onto an ‘electroshock’ plate, obedience decreased.

• Location: When he conducted this experiment in a run-down office instead of Yale University, where the original study took place, Milgram found that decreasing the authority and prestige of the location decreased obedience.

• Uniform: When the experimenter in a lab coat was replaced with an ‘ordinary member of the public’ in everyday clothing, Milgram found that the lack of uniform decreased obedience.

One strength of research into situational variables affecting obedience is that there is supporting evidence. For example, Hofling et al. conducted research similar to Milgram’s by calling nurses while pretending to be a doctor and asking them if there is any astroten (a fictional drug) and, if there is, to administer 10mg more than the maximum dosage to a patient -95% of the nurses obeyed. This is a strength because it increases the internal validity of Milgram’s research into situational variables affecting obedience, as hospitals are prestigious locations with rigid social hierarchies, leading to an increased chance of the nurses obeying, according to Milgram.

One limitation of research into situational variables affecting obedience is that it may have suffered from demand characteristics. This is because participants may have been more inclined to realise the aims of the study due to the extra manipulation taking place in Milgram’s variations (e.g. the experimenter being replaced by an ‘ordinary member of the public’), leading to participants manipulating their behaviour in accordance with what they perceived the research to be investigating. This is a limitation because it lowers the internal validity of Milgram’s findings, as participants responding to demand characteristics means their behaviour that is being studied is no longer natural.

Another limitation of research into situational variables affecting obedience is its potential to be used to justify immoral behaviour. Mandel criticised Milgram’s research, claiming it to be offensive to blame immoral and unjust behaviour (e.g. the Holocaust) on obedience - he called this the ‘obedience alibi’. This is a limitation because Milgram’s findings perhaps oversimplify the complexity of psychological and moral overlap when being told to carry out unjust actions by a perceived authority figure.

Resistance to Social Influence

Resistance to social influence is when individuals withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or to obey authority.

A social-psychological explanation refers to the influence of others on an individual’s behaviour, whereas a dispositional explanation concerns an individual’s characteristics that may influence their behaviour.

There is 1 social-psychological explanation for resistance to social influence (SP) and 1 dispositional explanation for resistance to social influence (D):

• Social Support (SP): Individuals are more likely to resist social influence when other individuals, known as ‘models’ in this situation, also resist pressures to conform or obey. In Asch’s study, he found that the presence of another non-conformist confederate lowered conformity by modelling resistant behaviour and providing the participants with social support to then submit the answer which they believed to be correct. Similarly, Milgram found in his study that obedience dropped when the teacher was joined by a disobedient confederate who modelled resistant behaviour and also provided the participants with social support to then follow their own morals. 

• Locus of Control (LOC) (D): Rotter proposed the idea of internal and external LOC, referring to individuals having a sense of what directs the events in their lives. Individuals are more likely to resist social influence if they have a high internal LOC, meaning they believe things happen to them as a result of their own actions. Individuals with a high external LOC believe things happen to them as a result of fate, luck, etc. 

One strength of social-psychological explanations for resistance to social influence is that there is supporting evidence. For example, Allan and Levine conducted a variation of Asch’s study and found that participants were less likely to conform when there was just one non-conformist confederate present, showing evidence of social support. This is a strength because it increases the internal validity of social-psychological explanations for resistance to social influence, as there is evidence of pressure being lifted off the participants due to receiving social support from just one other individual, highlighting the importance of social support in encouraging more independent behaviour.

One strength of dispositional explanations for resistance to social influence is that there is supporting evidence. For example, Holland conducted a variation of Milgram’s study in which he measured whether participants had an internal or external LOC and found that participants were less likely to obey when they showed a high internal LOC. This is a strength because it increases the internal validity of dispositional explanations for resistance to social influence, as there is evidence of a high internal LOC increasing the likelihood of individuals resisting social influence, highlighting the importance of LOC in explaining why some individuals are more likely to resist social influence than others.

One strength of both social-psychological and dispositional explanations for resistance to social influence is that Asch’s and Milgram’s baseline studies were laboratory studies. This is because the experiments were conducted in a highly controlled environment where potential extraneous variables were controlled. This allowed Asch and Milgram, as well as Allan and Levine and Holland, to find a clear cause-and-effect relationship between their IV (presence of confederates) and their DV (conformity). This is a strength because laboratory studies typically produce empirical findings, increasing the findings’ internal validity. However, laboratory studies suffer from a lack of ecological validity due to the artificial setting and a lack of mundane realism considering the task at hand, which prevents the generalisation of findings.

One limitation of social-psychological explanations for resistance to social influence is that there is a sole focus on situational factors. In particular, this is regarding the presence of other individuals within the social context, meaning the social support explanation only explains resistance in terms of the immediate social environment, but does not consider personal or psychological factors. This is a limitation because it lowers the reliability of social-psychological explanations for resistance to social influence. After all, dispositional factors offer a more complete understanding by taking into account individual differences.

One limitation of dispositional explanations for resistance to social influence is that they do not affect everyone’s behaviour in the same way. For example, Rotter argued that LOC mainly influences how individuals behave in new or unfamiliar situations, where they have little previous experience to guide their actions. However, in familiar situations - where individuals have encountered similar pressures before - past experiences tend to have a stronger impact on behaviour than locus of control. This means that even those with a strong internal locus of control might conform or obey if they have done so previously in similar circumstances. This is a limitation because it highlights that dispositional explanations’ ability to explain behaviour in unfamiliar situations is limited, so other factors (e.g. social support) may be more reliable predictors of resistance in real-world settings, lowering the ecological validity of dispositional explanations for resisting social influence.