Social Influence: Conformity & Obedience
Social influence examines how an individual's behaviour, attitudes, and beliefs are shaped by a social group or an authority figure. This guide covers Kelman's types of conformity, Asch's line study, Zimbardo's Stanford prison study, Milgram's obedience research, dispositional and situational explanations, and minority influence.
- Normative Social Influence (NSI)
- Conforming to a group to be accepted and belong, driven by the desire to avoid social rejection.
- Informational Social Influence (ISI)
- Conforming because we believe the majority is right, typically occurring in ambiguous situations.
- Agentic State
- A mental state where a person feels no personal responsibility for their behavior because they believe they are acting on behalf of an authority figure.
Social Influence: Conformity & Obedience: Situational Variables & Memory Encoding Simulator
Explore how situational variables alter human behaviour in controlled experiments or test cognitive rehearsal pathways.
Obedience to 450V: 65% (vs. 65% Baseline)
65% of participants obeyed all the way to the maximum 450V shock when the experimenter wore a grey lab coat at Yale University.
Exam notes: Conformity (Asch), Obedience (Milgram), Zimbardo & Minority Influence
- Always distinguish types of conformity (Kelman 1958: Compliance = temporary public change; Identification = public & private change only while in a group role; Internalisation = permanent public & private belief change) from EXPLANATIONS of conformity (Normative Social Influence = emotional desire to be liked/avoid rejection; Informational Social Influence = cognitive desire to be right in ambiguous situations).
- In Milgram's situational variable variations, memorise the exact obedience percentages to 450V for AO1/AO3 marks: Baseline at Yale = 65%; Run-down office = 47.5%; Touch proximity = 30%; Absent experimenter by phone = 20.5%; Civilian clothes (Bushman) = 20%; Two disobedient confederate peers = 10%.
- For Resistance to Social Influence, link Social Support to how it works: in Asch, a dissenter breaks the unanimity of the majority (freeing the naive participant from NSI); in Milgram, a disobedient peer acts as a role model of defiance, helping the participant shift back from the Agentic State to the Autonomous State.
- Minority Influence converts a majority via Internalisation through 3 behavioural styles (Moscovici 1969): Consistency (synchronic = all members agree; diachronic = consistent over time), Commitment (augmentation principle: making personal sacrifices), and Flexibility (willingness to compromise, Nemeth 1986), triggering the Snowball Effect and Social Cryptoamnesia.
| Feature | Normative Social Influence (NSI) | Informational Social Influence (ISI) |
|---|---|---|
| Underlying motivation | Emotional need to fit in, gain social approval, and avoid rejection | Cognitive need to be correct and make the right decision |
| When it occurs | Unambiguous tasks with strangers or peers watching publicly | Ambiguous, unfamiliar, or crisis situations where you lack expertise |
| Type of conformity produced | Compliance (publicly agree, privately disagree) | Internalisation (both public behaviour and private beliefs change) |
| Key research support | Asch (1951): 36.8% conformed on easy line task; fell to 12.5% when writing answers privately | Lucas et al. (2006): much higher conformity on hard maths problems than easy ones |
Key Concepts & Exam Definitions (8)
- Normative Social Influence (NSI)
- Conforming to a group to be accepted and belong, driven by the desire to avoid social rejection.
- Informational Social Influence (ISI)
- Conforming because we believe the majority is right, typically occurring in ambiguous situations.
- Agentic State
- A mental state where a person feels no personal responsibility for their behavior because they believe they are acting on behalf of an authority figure.
- Authoritarian Personality
- A dispositional explanation for obedience, characterized by extreme respect for authority and contempt for those deemed inferior.
- Minority Influence
- A form of social influence where a minority persuades others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors, leading to internalisation.
- Agentic Shift vs Autonomous State (Milgram)
- In the autonomous state, individuals feel personally responsible for their actions. The agentic shift occurs when a person perceives someone higher in the social hierarchy as a legitimate authority and acts as their 'agent', feeling no personal moral responsibility (though experiencing moral strain).
- Locus of Control (Rotter 1966)
- A personality dimension measuring perception of control over life events. High Internal LOC individuals believe outcomes result from their own effort and decisions (more likely to resist conformity and obedience); High External LOC individuals attribute outcomes to luck, fate, or powerful others.
- Augmentation Principle & Snowball Effect
- Under the augmentation principle, if a minority takes personal risks or suffers for their cause, the majority takes their argument more seriously. Through the snowball effect, a small number of converts gradually grows until the minority view becomes the new majority norm.
Quick-Fire Flashcards (8)
Click any card to check the answer, then mark it as Known to track your progress.
What are the three types of conformity?
In Asch's baseline study, what percentage of trials did participants conform on?
What voltage did all participants reach in Milgram's baseline obedience study?
What three behavioral styles are key for minority influence?
What is the autonomous state?
What are the three types of conformity identified by Kelman (1958)?
State the obedience percentages in Milgram's baseline study and three situational variations.
What are the three key behavioural factors that make minority influence effective?
Exam-Style Questions & Mark Schemes (4)
Write or think through your answer first, then click Check Mark Scheme to see the exact points examiners award marks for.
- Q1
Outline Asch's research into conformity.
Click “Check Mark Scheme” to compare your answer, Asch tested conformity by asking participants to judge line lengths. A naive participant was placed in a room with several confederates who deliberately gave wrong answers. The naive participant conformed on 36.8% of the critical trials, showing the power of normative social influence.
- Q2
Explain how proximity affects obedience, referring to Milgram's research.
Click “Check Mark Scheme” to compare your answer, When the teacher and learner were in the same room, obedience dropped from 65% to 40%. When the experimenter gave instructions by telephone, obedience dropped to 20.5%. Closer proximity to the victim increases realization of harm, while distance from authority decreases their influence.
- Q3
Describe what is meant by 'locus of control' in resisting social influence.
Click “Check Mark Scheme” to compare your answer, Locus of control refers to a person's perception of personal control over their behavior. People with an internal locus of control believe they dictate their own destiny and rely less on others' opinions, making them better equipped to resist pressures to conform or obey.
- Q4
Outline and evaluate Two Explanations for Conformity (Normative Social Influence and Informational Social Influence). [8 marks]
Click “Check Mark Scheme” to compare your answer, 1) AO1 (3 marks): NSI is an emotional process where people conform to gain social approval and avoid rejection, leading to compliance. ISI is a cognitive process where people look to others for guidance in ambiguous situations to be right, leading to internalisation. 2) AO3 Support for NSI (2 marks): Asch (1951) found 36.8% conformity on an unambiguous line task where participants admitted conforming to avoid looking foolish; when answers were written privately, conformity dropped to 12.5%. 3) AO3 Support for ISI (2 marks): Lucas et al. (2006) found participants conformed significantly more on difficult maths problems than easy ones, especially those with low maths confidence. 4) AO3 Interaction (1 mark): Both processes often operate together (e.g. a dissenter in Asch reduces both NSI peer pressure and ISI confidence in the majority).
Common Exam Questions (5)
What are the three types of conformity?
Kelman (1958) distinguished three levels of conformity: compliance (publicly agreeing with a group while privately disagreeing), identification (adopting a group's behaviour both publicly and privately while valuing membership of that group), and internalisation (genuinely accepting the group's beliefs both publicly and privately).
What is internalisation in psychology?
Internalisation is the deepest and most permanent level of conformity, in which an individual examines the group's position, accepts it as correct (usually via informational social influence), and maintains the belief even in the absence of the group.
What is the difference between compliance and internalisation?
Compliance is superficial, temporary conformity where a person goes along with the group in public to avoid rejection (normative social influence) while keeping their own private views. Internalisation involves a genuine change in both public behaviour and private belief.
What was the aim of Milgram's study?
Milgram (1963) aimed to investigate whether ordinary American citizens would obey an authority figure instructing them to administer increasingly severe electric shocks to an innocent stranger, testing the 'Germans are different' dispositional hypothesis of the Holocaust.
What is an internal locus of control?
Rotter (1966) defined an internal locus of control as the belief that outcomes in life result primarily from one's own actions and decisions; individuals with a high internal locus of control are more likely to resist pressure to conform or obey.
Need more questions on Social Influence: Conformity & Obedience, or want to organise your own notes?
Type a specific exam question you are stuck on, pick one of the prompts below, or paste your class notes to build a custom set of flashcards and practice questions on this page.
Related study guides
Memory: Models, Types & Forgetting
Cognitive psychology examines how human memory encodes, stores, and retrieves information. This guide covers Atkinson and Shiffrin's Multi-Store Model, Baddeley and Hitch's Working Memory Model, types of long-term memory, explanations for forgetting (interference and retrieval failure), and factors affecting eyewitness testimony.
Attachment Theory: Bowlby & Ainsworth
Attachment refers to the reciprocal, enduring emotional bond between an infant and their primary caregiver. This guide covers caregiver-infant interactions, learning theory vs Bowlby's monotropic theory, Ainsworth's Strange Situation classification, cultural variations, and the effects of maternal deprivation and institutionalisation.