Most likely 16/8 AO3

• Asch's (1951) study has low temporal validity.


  Society has changed now we are less conformist and more independent as opposed to in the 1950s.

  Supported by a repeated study in the UK with engineering students found only 1 person to conform in 396 trials.
• Asch's lacks ecological validity.


  Asch used all American male participants (beta bias) who were strangers. NSI is more likely to be present in a group of friends where they wish to be accepted.

  Research also suggests women are more conformist.

  Although group size is said to increase conformity this may not transfer to real life.
• Highly appropriate to learn about GUT.


  It is necessary to teach young people about resisting conformity/peer pressure in dangerous situations.

  One dissenter reduces NSI as unanimity is broken and so peer pressure is reduced.
• SPE was highly controlled.


  Only emotionally stable individuals were used to rule out individual personality differences as a potential explanation.

  If they behaved very differently but the roles were by chance behaviour must have been due to the role.

  Increased internal validity - increased confidence in conclusions drawn.
• Zimbardos SPE had extreme ethical issues.


  Pps weren't protected from psychological harm - many appeared to have breakdowns which weren’t responded to quickly enough.Ppt didn’t have the right to withdraw as it was difficult to leave, so they felt trapped.Informed consent wasn’t gained - they were unaware of being arrested in their homes at 2 am.However, Zimbardo argues this doesn’t take away from the validity of the findings nor the importance of the study.
• Zimbardo exaggerated the power of roles.


  Only 1/3 ppts behaved in a brutal manner, 1/3 tried to apply the rules fairly and the rest tried to help and support prisoners. Most resist the situational pressure to conform to the brutal role.

  This suggests Zimbardo minimised the influence of dispositional factors.
• Evidence supports the role of dissenting peers in resisting social influence.


  Asch line study found that with the presence of one dissenter giving the correct answer caused conformity to drop to 5.5%.

  Showing peer support can lead to disobedience by undermining the legitimacy of authority.
• Social support has positive effects.


  Albrecht et al helped pregnant adolescents resist peer pressure to smoke providing social support through a buddy. Those with a buddy were significantly less likely to smoke than a control group without buddies at the end.Showing social support can help adolescents resist social influence with intervention in the real world.
• Supportive evidence for LOC.

  Holland repeated Milgram's baseline study - measuring if ppts were internals or externals.

  He found that 37% of internals resisted compared to 23% of externals.

  This shows resistance is partly linked to LOC.
• Contradictory research within LOC.


  Twenge et al - found, in an analysis of data, that people become more resistant to obedience but also more external.

  We would expect people to become more internal if LOC is linked to resistance suggesting it isn't a valid explanation.
• Deeper processing may not play a role in minorities bringing about social change.


  Mackie presents evidence that majority influence may create deeper processing if you don’t share their views as we like to believe others share our views, thinking the same as us. This challenges the central element of minority influence causing social change.

  If a majority thinks differently we must question why this is.
• Minority influence explains how change is brought about.


  Nemeth - claims social change is due to the type of thinking minorities inspire, when considering these arguments they engage in divergent thinking (which is broader). Leading to better decisions and more creative solutions to social issues.
• Support for the role of NSI in social change.


  Nolan et al - found when messages were hung on doors to change energy habits those that held a reference to others’ behaviours had a significant decrease in usage compared to those without.

  However, other studies have found that behaviour doesn’t always change through expressing it to social norms, suggesting that NSI doesn’t always produce drastic or long-term social change.