Social Influence

• Social influence = the change in behaviour that occurs when a person is exposed to the behaviour of others
• Conformity = yielding to group pressure
• Obidence= following orders from someone we perceive to have a higher authority than us
• Blind obedience = when people dont question the morality of what there being told to do , can result in harmful behaviour
• Crowd Behaviour=refers to a group of people who have come together for a common purpose - eg football match
• Collective behaviour= The behaviour of 2 or more individuals acting together - eg. a crowd
• Anti-social behaviour = actions that go against society and harms it in some way
• Pro-social behaviour = actions which benefit society - e.g = giving to charity
• Normative Conformity - when people conform to the group because they want to be liked even though we may not agree with them .
• Informational Conformity - This is when we wan to be liked and conform to the group because they believe the majority of the group is right as we look to them for the right answer
• A crowd will not necesseraily have a crowd mentality e.g - in a shopping center there are lots of people but all are completing their own individual tasks
• The behaviour of 2 or more individuals that have come together for a common purpose , the behaviour can be spontantues and unplannned with people behaving in a way they might not normally
• Crowd Mentality - The idea that crowds make us act differently than if we were alone, this could lead to irrational behaviour such as violence
• Standford Prison Experiment - Zimbado
• Confederate - someone who pretends to be part of a study
• Altruism-helping or showing concern for others without expecting any rewards .
• The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted at Stanford University in Northern California, one of America's most prestigious academic institutions, in 1971
• Zimbardo's interest


  What happens if you put good people in an evil place? Does the situation outside of you, the institution, control your behavior, or do the things inside you - your attitude, values, morality - allow you to rise above a negative environment?
• Zimbardo's experiment


  1. Convert the basement of the university's psychology department into a subterranean jail

  2. Assign participants randomly to the role of guard or prisoner

  3. Have guards wear military uniforms and silver mirrored sunglasses to create a sense of power over prisoners
• Asch wanted to see if the real participant would conform to the majority view, even when the answer was clearly incorrect. Asch measured the number of times each participant conformed to the majority view. On average, the real participants conformed to the incorrect answers on 32% of the critical trials
• Morality - the principles of right and wrong that guide our actions and decisions.