Social Influence Paper 1

• What is conformity?

  Process of yielding to the majority influence due to real or imagined group pressure
• Types of conformity

  • Compliance - publicly conforming to behaviours/views of others
  • Internalisation - private change of views to match the group
  • Identification - adopting views/behaviours both publicly and privately when member of the group
• Explanations for conformity

  • Normative social influence - need to be accepted by others, leads to compliance
  • Informative social influence - need to be correct, leads to internalisation
• Evaluation for explanations of conformity

  • ISI supported by Sherif
  • NSI supported by Asch
  • Lucas et al supports ISI as there was greater conformity to incorrect answers when the questions were more difficult
  • Individual differences in ISI and NSI explanations, e.g Asch found students were less conformist than other types of people
• Sherif's Study

  • investigated the emergence of group norms using the autokinetic effect
  • When participants were tested individually, they gave very similar estimates each time, but they were very different to each others' guesses.
  • When they worked in groups of three, their estimates converged until a group norm emerged, showing that in ambiguous situations, the participants looked to others in the group for guidance (ISI)
• Evaluation of Sherif

  • Asch argued that the experiment did not test for true conformity because Sherif's autokinetic effect was an ambiguous task where there was no clear right or wrong answer
  • Lacks ecological validity
• Asch's Study

  • investigated whether individuals would yield to majority influence
  • In groups with 6-8 confederates and asked what lines are the same lengths
  • In 12 out of 18 trials, confederates gave the wrong answers, and participants were observed for conforming to the wrong answer
• Results from Asch's study

  • Participants gave the wrong answer in 32% trials
  • 74% conformed at least once
  • Asch concluded that even when faced with a task where the correct answer is clear, the need to fit in with the majority can cause an individual to give the same answer as the confederates on a significant number of occasions
• Variables affecting conformity

  1. Group size = when majority was 2, conformity dropped to 12.8%, but increasing the majority, conformity did not extend beyond 32 %
  2. Unanimity = If a confederate gave answers different to the majority, conformity dropped to 5 %
  3. Task Difficulty = when the task was more difficult, conformity increased
• Evaluation of Asch's study

  • Lacked ecological validity
  • The sample used was ethnocentric - collectivist cultures show much higher levels of conformity than individualistic
  • The sample was beta biased
  • may not be applicable to contemporary Western society due to the experiment taking place in the McCarthy era when non-conformity was discouraged
• Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment

  • investigated how readily people conform to the expectations they have about social roles
  • used a volunteer sample of 'normal' American males
  • Volunteers were randomly allocated to the roles of prisoners or guards
  • Prisoners = stripped given smocks to wear and their prison number to memorise
  • Prison guards = wore khaki uniforms, dark glasses and carried wooden batons
• Results from Zimbardo's experiment

  • Guards harassed the prisoners and conformed to their roles so well that the study had to be stopped after 6 days
  • Prisoners rebelled against the guards after 2 days, which the guards stopped with fire extinguishers
  • Some prisoners became depressed and anxious, with many having to leave the study early
  • Zimbardo concluded that the ‘prison environment’ was an important factor in creating the guards’ brutal behaviour
  • People will readily conform to the social roles they are expected to play
• Evaluation of Zimbardo's study

  • High control over some variables, e.g. participants
  • Participants may have been play-acting rather than conforming, e.g. one of the guards claimed he based his role on a brutal character from a film he had seen
  • However, Zimbardo found that 90% of the prisoner’s conversations were about prison life, suggesting the situation was real to the participants, thus it had high internal validity
  • Unethical, made worse by the fact that Zimbardo appeared to lose sight of the harm being done as he played the role of the prison ‘chief superintendent’
• What is obedience?


  acting in response to a direct order from an authority figure
• Milgram's study of obedience

  • wanted to find out whether ordinary Americans would obey an unjust order from a person in an authority figure
  • Sample of 40 male volunteers, thinking they were studying the role of punishment in learning
  • The participant always had the teacher’s role and a confederate played the role of the learner
  • The had to administer a shock every time the learner made a mistake.
  • Shocks rose in 15 V increments to 450 V
• Results from Milgram's study

  • All participants went to 300 volts
  • 65% went to 450 volts
  • Most participants found the procedure very stressful and wanted to stop, with some showing signs of extreme anxiety
  • Milgram concluded that under certain circumstances, most will obey orders that go against their conscience, suggesting it is situational factors that lead to crimes of humanity
• Evaluation of Milgram's work

  • may lack internal validity as participants may not have believed that they were really giving electric shocks and were simply going along with the experiment
  • Lacks ecological validity as the artificial nature of the experiment may mean it doesn’t reflect real-life obedience
  • Unethical
  • Criticised for being androcentric and ethnocentric, thus ungeneralisable to women and people from other cultures
• Explanations for obedience - legitimacy of authority

  • people feel obligated to those in authority because they respect their credentials
  • Legitimate power is held by authority figures, giving them the right to exert control over the behaviour of others and they accept it.
  • people are willing to give up their independence and to hand control of their behaviour over to the authority figure.
  • E.g. when there was legitimacy of authority (prestigious college), obedience was 65%; however, when the legitimacy of the authority was questioned (seedy offices), obedience dropped to 47.5 %
• Evaluation of legitimacy of authority

  • Some researchers found legitimacy of authority was the main reason why people obeyed in the Milgram study
  • Can explain cultural differences in obedience. For example in an Australian replication only 16 % obeyed whereas 85 % of Germans did so, showing that there are cultural differences in what is accepted as legitimate authority and therefore what demands obedience
  • can explain real-life war crimes , such as the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam
• Explanations for obedience - the agentic state

  • People obey authority because they do not take responsibility for their behaviour.
  • They move from an autonomous state to the agentic state, where they see themselves as the agents and not responsible for their actions, (‘ agentic shift’)
  • they experience anxiety when they realise what they are doing is wrong but feel powerless
  • E.g. when participants were told the responsibility was shifted to a confederate who flicked the switch, obedience rose to 92.5 %, suggesting they were operating on the agentic level
• Evaluation of the agentic state

  • cannot explain why some people do not obey or why some who make the agentic shift do not always show signs of stress at doing so.
  • cannot explain why people obey when there is no agentic shift made
• Situational Variables affecting obedience - Proximity

  • how close a person is to another person
  • E.g. when teacher and learner were together a close proximity, obedience fell to 40 %
  • E.g. when teacher gave instructions over the phone, obedience fell to 20.5 %
  • suggests that how close we are to a person who we may be hurting due to obedience affects our willingness to obey, as does our distance from the person giving the instruction
• Situational Variables affecting obedience-Location

  • where the obedience is taking place
  • E.g. when the experiment took place in seedy offices rather than the prestigious Yale university, obedience fell to 47.5 %
  • suggests the participants felt there was less authority linked to this location and therefore disobeyed
• Situational Variables affecting obedience - uniform

  • what the authority figure is wearing, linking to legitimacy of authority
  • E.g. Bickman found that people were twice as likely to obey the confederate dressed as a security guard than the one dressed in jacket and tie
• Authoritarian personality

  • They have an extreme respect for those in authority, and are hostile towards those they consider inferior and have highly conventional attitudes
  • believe we need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values
  • this personality started in childhood, as a result of harsh parenting, characterised by strict discipline and conditional love
  • these experiences create hostility, but the child cannot express this towards the parents because of a fear or punishment, so the fears are displaced onto those who are perceived to be weaker
• Adorno's research

  • investigated the causes of the obedient personality using 2000 middle-class, white Americans.
  • He assessed their attitudes towards racial groups, using the F-scale questionnaire.
  • Those scoring highly tended to have authoritarian personality characteristics
  • Adorno’s research suggests that having an authoritarian personality makes it more likely that a person will be obedient, supporting his theory.
• Evaluation of the Authoritarian personality

  • Milgram found that the most obedient participants in his study were those who had the authoritarian personality.
  • However, Milgram’s finding is correlational so it cannot be concluded that having an authoritarian personality causes high obedience.
  • There could be a third factor involved, e.g. lower level of education.
  • The authoritarian personality cannot explain why so many people are obedient at the same time, e.g. soldiers in Holocaust which seems highly unlikely.
  • Adorno’s research is also just based on correlations, weakening the explanation
• Explanations of resistance to social influence - social support

  • the presence of people who resist pressures to conform or obey act as models to show that resistance is possible
• Social support - resisting conformity

  • The pressure to conform can be reduced if there are other people who are not conforming.
  • This makes the individual feel more confident in their own decision and more confident in rejecting the majority.
  • This was demonstrated Asch’s study, when the participant was in a group with a confederate who gave the correct response, conformity dropped from 32 % to 5.5 %
• Evaluation of social support - resisting conformity

  • In Asch's study, when the ‘dissenter’ gave the other incorrect response, conformity dropped to 9 %.
  • Asch’s research is a laboratory experiment which means the explanation may lack ecological validity
  • Asch’s research was conducted on males and therefore his results may not apply in the same way to females; meaning his evidence for social support may lack population validity.
  • Asch’s results may be due to the fact he was testing Americans at a time when anti-conformity was discouraged, so the explanation may therefore lack temporal validity.
• social support - resisting obedience

  • The pressure to obey can be reduced if another disobeys.
  • The person acts as a model for the participant to copy that frees them to act from their own conscience.
  • In one of Milgram’s variations, two confederates joined the participant, and when the confederates refused to continue, obedience fell to 10 %.
• Evaluation of social support - resisting obedience

  • Gamson found that 88% of participants disobeyed when there were others who also disobeyed.
  • Gamson’s research is likely to have had a high level of realism, suggesting the social support explanation is externally valid.
  • Gamson’s results are also likely to be free from demand characteristics, therefore, his results are more likely to be internally valid, suggesting the social support explanation may also be valid.
  • However, there could have been many other reasons for the disobedience shown e.g. conformity to the disobedience of the group.
• resistance-LOC

  • Locus of control refers to individual differences in people’s beliefs about what controls events in their lives
  • Those with internal LOC believe that what happens to them is a consequence of their own behaviour, they are self-confident. Someone with an internal LOC accepts responsibility for their actions thus are less likely to conform/obey.
  • Those with external LOC tend to believe that things happening are uncontrollable. Luck and fate are important. Those with a strong external LOC believe their actions have little impact and are more likely to conform/obey
• Evaluation of LOCs

  • African-American college students who participated in civil rights activities in the early 1960’s were high on internal LOC
  • A meta analysis showed those who had an external locus of control were more easily persuaded and likely to conform
  • A replication of Milgram’s study found that 37 % of internals refused to obey, compared to 23 % of externals.
  • However, an analysis of data from obedience studies over a 40 years showed that people have become more resistant to obedience but also more external, suggesting LOC may not be the only factor in resisting social influence.
• Minority influence


  Minority influence refers to situations where one person or a small group of people influence the beliefs and behaviours of other people.
• minority influence - commitment

  • minorities are more powerful if they demonstrate commitment to their cause, e.g., by making personal sacrifices.
  • This is effective because it shows the minority is not acting out of self-interest.
• minority influence - flexibility

  • Nemeth said that consistency is not the only important factor in minority influence because it can be interpreted negatively.
  • Being extremely consistent and repeating the same arguments and behaviour can be seen as rigid and inflexible.
  • This is off-putting to the majority and unlikely to result in persuasion.
  • Therefore, the minority should be prepared to adapt their point of view
  • They need to find a balance between consistency and flexibility.
• minority influence - consistency

  • this is when the minority keep to the same argument to try and persuade others.
  • Being consistent makes others think that the minority know what they are talking about and so are persuaded.
  • Consistency can involve synchronic consistency, where all of the minority say the same thing, or diachronic consistency, where they remain consistent over time.
• evaluation of minority influence

  • There is research to support that consistency can be used by minorities to persuade a majority
  • a meta-analysis found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential.
  • There is evidence that using consistency, commitment or flexibility can cause people to think more deeply about an argument and to therefore be persuaded, e.g. Martin et al
  • there are many factors that can affect whether people are persuaded by an argument that are not considered
• Minority influence - Moscovici et al

  • 6 participants looked at 36 blue coloured slides that varied in intensity and then stated whether the slides were blue or green.
  • In each group there were 2 confederates who consistently said the slides were green on 2 / 3 of the trials.
  • The participants gave the same wrong answer on 8.4% of the trials, 32 % gave the same wrong answer as the minority on at least one trial.
  • A second group of participants were exposed to an inconsistent minority and agreement fell to 1.25 %.