Chapter 1 – Social Influence

Social influence is the process by which an individual’s attitudes, beliefs or behaviours are
modified by the process or actions of others

Types of Conformity
 Conformity is a type of social influence; it can be defined as a change in behaviour or
belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure
 When someone conforms, they choose an action that is favoured by the group majority
 There are 3 types of conformity: compliance, identification, internalisation

Compliance
 Compliance is when an individual is exposed to the views / actions of a majority, they
engage in social comparison
 This is a short term change and will only last as long as the individual in that situation
 This results in public compliance, without private attitude change
 One reason for this is because fitting in which the majority is seen as desirable
 Compliance generally happens when subconscious
 A person may laugh at a joke because their group of friends find it funny but deep down
the person doesn’t find it funny

What do psychologists mean by compliance? (2 marks)

Identification
 Identification is when an individual adopts an attitude or behaviour because they want
to be associated with a particular person or group
 The change is likely to last as long as the individual is with the group
 Identification generally happens consciously
 A child may start smoking because ‘that’s what all cool kids do’ and they want to be seen
as one of these ‘cool kids’

Explain what psychologists mean by identification (2 marks)

Internalisation
 Internalisation is when an individual is exposed to the views of a group, they validate or
examine their own beliefs
 When examining the group’s position, they may convince themselves that the group is
right and their own viewpoint is wrong
 This is a long-lasting change and will continue outside of the group situation
 This leads to public and private acceptance of the group’s beliefs
 Internalisation can be either conscious or subconscious
 If someone lived with a vegan at university and then decides to also become one too
because they agree with their friend’s viewpoint

Outline one difference between internalisation and identification as types of conformity (2)
Explanations For Conformity
 Deutsch and Gerald (1955) developed a two-process theory to explain two main reasons
why people may conform: two central human needs

Normative Social Influence (NSI)

 This refers to instances where someone conforms in order to fit in and gain approval or
avoid disapproval from other group members

 This explanation is based on the belief that human beings are social species, and
therefore have a fundamental need for this social approval
 For NSI to occur, the individual must believe they’re under surveillance by the group
 This results in public conformity, without changing their private beliefs (i.e. compliance)

 Checking what your friends are wearing before meeting up so you can dress similarly

Using an example, explain what is meant by ‘normative social influence’ (3 marks)

Informational Social Influence (ISI)

 This refers to instances where people conform because they are uncertain about what
to do in a particular situation, so they look to others for guidance

 This explanation is based on the belief that people have a desire to be correct
 During an uncertain situation, people will look to the behaviour of others for answers on
how to act correctly

 This type of influence is a cognitive process because it is to do with what you think
 It therefore leads to a permanent change in behaviour or opinion (i.e. internalisation)

 If someone was in a posh restaurant for the first time, they may not know which fork to
use, so they might look to a nearby person to see which fork to use first

Outline informational social influence as an explanation for conformity (4 marks)

Explain two differences between informational and normative social influence (4 marks)

Evaluating Conformity

 Research has supported the influence of normative beliefs on behaviour

 Some participants in Asch’s (1951) experiment said they conformed because they felt
self-conscious giving the correct answer and they were afraid of disapproval
 When participants wrote their answers down, conformity fell by 12.5%
 This is because giving answers privately meant there was no normative group pressure
 This shows that at least some conformity is due to a desire not to be rejected by the
group for disagreeing with them
 Therefore showing that people shape their behaviour out of a desire to fit in with a
reference group
 Research has supported the role of informational influence in shaping behaviour
 Lucas (2006) found that participants conformed more often to incorrect answers they
were given when the math problems were difficult (since when the problems became
hard the situation became unclear)
 The participants did not want to be wrong so they relied on the answers they were given
 This shows that ISI is a valid explanation of conforming because the results are what ISI
would predict

 It is difficult to know when a person is subject to informational or normative influence

 It’s assumed that agreeing with the majority both in public and in private must indicate
informational influence
 But it is also possible that the initial reason for complying was to fit in with the group
(i.e. NSI) and then through self-perception of their own belief, the person accepts the
position as their own
 It is hard to distinguish between ISI and NSI
 Both processes probably operate together in most real-world conformity situations

Outline and evaluate two explanations of conformity (16 marks)

Asch’s Research
 Solomon Asch (1951) devised an experiment to establish the extent that group pressure
can influence an individual to conform to that group’s way of thinking

 123 American male participants were each in turn shown two cards
 One card with a ‘reference’ line drawn on it and another card which
had three labelled lines
 One of the comparison lines was clearly the same length as the
reference line, and the others were clearly wrong
 On each trial, the participants had to say out loud which of the
comparison lines was the same length as the reference line

o 37% conformed o 25% never conformed o 75% conformed at least once

o Results showed that participants agreed with the incorrect majority answer (i.e. they
conformed) in 32% of the trials
o This rate of conformity was lower when the group size was smaller, when the task was
easier and when less members of the group agreed

 From this experiment alone, we can conclude that a group exerts a strong influence on
an individual to conform, especially when the individual is in a minority of one
 Individuals are willing to conform even when the majority is clearly wrong (i.e. NSI)

Outline research into conformity (6 marks)

Variables Affecting Conformity
 Asch (1955) extended his baseline study to investigate the variables that might lead to
an increase or decrease in conformity

Group Size
Point An individual is more likely to conform when in a larger group
Evidence There was low conformity when group size of confederates was less than 3
With 3 confederates, conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%
But the presence of more confederates made little difference
Explain A person is more likely to conform if all members of the group are in
agreement and give the same answer, because they want to fit in (NSI)
Link This suggests that most people are very sensitive to the views of others
because just one or two confederates was enough to sway opinion

Unanimity – the extent to which all members of a group agree

Point An individual is more likely to conform when the group is unanimous (i.e. they
all give the same answer)
Evidence When joined by another participant who gave the correct answer, conformity
fell from 32% to 5.5%
Explain The presence of a dissenter appeared to free the naïve participant to behave
more independently because they have more confidence
Link This suggests that the influence of the majority depends to a large extent on it
being unanimous

Task Difficulty
Point An individual is more likely to conform when the task is difficult
Evidence Asch increased the difficulty of the line-judging task by making the reference
line and the comparison lines more similar to each other in length
Since it was harder to see the difference, conformity increased
Explain It may be that the situation is more ambiguous when the task becomes harder
– it is unclear to the participants what the right answer is
Link In these circumstances, it is natural to look to other people for guidance and
to assume that they are right and you are wrong (i.e. ISI)
This suggests that ISI is a major mechanism for conformity when the situation
is ambiguous and the individual doesn’t have enough knowledge of their own

In relation to Asch’s research, explain what is meant by unanimity and task difficulty (4)
Outline how Asch investigated two variables that affect conformity (4 marks)
Explain the role of group size / unanimity / difficulty as a variable affecting conformity (4)
Asch’s Research – Evaluation

 Conducted in a laboratory setting

 Enabled Asch to have control over all the variables
 Enabled researchers to more easily replicate the study
 Helped researches check the reliability of the results which have been found to be
consistent and show the study has validity

 Perrin and Spencer (1980) claimed Asch’s findings are unique because of the period of
US history in which the study took place
 McCarthyism was a period of strong anti-communist feeling in American when people
were scared to be different
 Perrin and Spencer attempted to repeat Asch’s experiment in the late 1970s in England
with engineering students
 But in their initial study they obtained only one conforming response out of 396 trials
 This suggests that participants’ fear of rejection and gaining social approval was a key
element to the findings established by Asch in 1956

 The task and situation were artificial

 Participants knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone along with
what the expected (demand characteristics)
 The task of identifying lines was relatively trivial and therefore there was no reason not
to conform
 According to Susan Fiske (2014), “Asch’s groups were not very groupy,” i.e. they did not
really resemble groups that we experience in everyday life
 This means the findings do not generalise to real-world situations, especially those
where the consequences of conformity might be important

 All participants were American men

 Other research (Neto 1995) suggests that women may be more conformist, possibly
because they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted
 Other conformity studies (Bond 1996) conducted in collectivist cultures – such as China
where social group is more important than the individual – have found higher
conformity rates
 This means that Asch’s findings tell us little about conformity in women and people from
certain cultures

Describe and evaluate Asch’s investigations into variables affecting conformity (16 marks)
Outline and evaluate research into conformity (16 marks)
Social Roles
 Social roles are the ‘parts’ people play as members of various social groups
 Everyday examples include parent, child, student, passenger and so on
 These are accompanied by expectations we and others have of what is appropriate
behaviour in each role, for example caring, obedient etc.
 Conforming to a social role is called identification

Using an example, explain what is meant by social roles (2 marks)

Zimbardo’s Research
 In 1973 Zimbardo conducted a study in order to know why prison guards behave brutally
 The aim was to investigate if behaviour in prisons is due to the role people play, and
whether people will conform to a social role

Procedure
 Zimbardo set up a mock prison in the basement of the psychology department at
Stanford University
 They selected 21 male student volunteers who tested as ‘emotionally stable’
 The students were randomly assigned to play the role of prison guard or prisoner
 Guards – uniform, whistles, dark glasses (so eye contact with prisoners was impossible),
encouraged to play their role and reminded that they had power over the prisoners
 Prisoners – identified by a number and wore a loose smock with a cap to cover their hair
 These uniforms created a loss of personal identity (de-individualisation) and meant they
would be more likely to conform to the perceived social role

Outline how one study of conformity to social roles was conducted (4 marks)

Findings
 Within a very short time, both groups settled into their new roles
 Guards quickly behaved in a brutal and sadistic manner, harassing the prisoners
 As the prisoners became more submissive, the guards became more aggressive and
assertive → they demanded even greater obedience from the prisoners
 Prisoners began referring to one another by the ID numbers instead of their actual
names (de-individuation was apparent)
 The study was stopped after only 6 days after it became apparent of the significant harm
that was being caused by the aggressive behaviour of the guards

Conclusions
 Social roles have a more powerful influence over our behaviour than we tend to believe
 Such roles were very easily taken on by all participants
 The guards acted in extreme ways, perhaps due to the lack of constraint on their
behaviour → shows the power of the situation in shaping people’s behaviour

Outline Zimbardo’s study of conformity to social roles and its findings (6 marks)
Outline the findings of one study of conformity to social roles (4 marks)
Ethical Issue
 Zimbardo took on the role of both prison supervisor and conductor of the experiment
 Resulted in Zimbardo having a subjective opinion over the ethics of the experiment,
since he had a confliction of interest as both superintendent and lead researcher
 Due to this confliction, there was nobody overseeing the ethics of the study with an
objective opinion – this put the psychological wellbeing of the participants at risk

Identify one ethical issue which arose in Zimbardo’s study and outline its impact (3 marks)

Social Roles – Evaluation

 Zimbardo and his colleagues has control over key variables

• Emotionally stable individuals were chosen and randomly assigned to the roles
 This was one way in which the researchers ruled out individual personality differences as
an explanation of the findings
 If the guards and prisoners behaved very differently, but were in those roles only by
chance, then their behaviour must have been due to the role itself
 This degree of control over variables increased the internal validity of the study
 More confident in drawing conclusions about the influence of roles on conformity

 McDermott (2019) argues that the participants did behave as if the prison was real
• 90% of the prisoners’ conversations were about prison life
 Amongst themselves, they discussed how it was impossible to leave the SPE before their
‘sentences’ were over
 This suggests that the SPE did replicate the social roles of prisoners and guards in a real
prison, giving the study a high degree of internal validity

 Did not have the realism of a true prison

 Participants were merely play-acting rather than genuinely conforming to a role
 Participants’ performances were based on their stereotypes of how prisoners and
guards are supposed to behave
• One of the guards claimed he has based his role on a brutal character from the film Cool
Hand Luke
 This explains why the prisoners rioted (they thought that was what real prisoners did)
 This suggests that the findings of the SPE tell us little about conformity to social roles in
actual prisons

 The study raised serious ethical concerns considering the level of distress the
participants experienced
 Some reacted by crying, rage and anxiety – could have long-term psychological effects
 Zimbardo took on the role of both superintendent and experimental supervisor
 This all suggests that the participants experienced harm which took away their privacy
and their right to protection from harm

Outline and evaluate Zimbardo’s research into conformity to social roles (16 marks)
Implications

 The harmful treatment of participants led to the formal recognition of ethical guidelines
 Studies must now gain ethical approval before they are conducted
 An ethics committee review whether the potential benefits of the research are
justifiable in the light of possible risk of physical or psychological harm

 SPE shed light on the relationship between prisoner and guard to help understand the
behaviour of those in a position of authority
 In the case of Abu Gharib, it has been shown that while we know about the evils that
occur in this world, people will still continue to hide under authority figures so they have
the power to commit sadistic acts

BBC Prison Study (2001)

 Carried out to re-examine conclusions from Stanford’s Prison Experiment (SPE)

 Replicated that Stanford Prison Experiment in a stimulated prison environment

 Over a period of 8 days, the study examined the behaviour of 15 men who were placed
in a social hierarchy of guards and prisoners in a purpose-built prison environment

 Over the course it was found that the guards’ identification with their group decreased
and this in turn diminished their capacity for organisation and leadership
 In contrast, the prisoner showed increasingly high levels of identification with the group,
and this allowed them to work as a group and ultimately make the guards’ regime
unworkable

 How groups work depends on far more than just taking on a social role

 The participants were randomly assigned to either prisoners or guards

 Guards had superior accommodation and better quality uniforms while prisoners were
referred to by numbers and shared cells

Didn’t have any ethical Had an ethical committee on site that was monitoring all
oversee aspects of the study to ensure that they didn’t have any
kind of abuse that manifested in Zimbardo’s study
Guards really exerted their It was actually the prisoners who bonded together as a
authority over the prisoners group and became quite aggressive and quite intimidating
in all sorts of ways towards the guards. The guards by contrast actually seem
quite uncomfortable with their role in the higher status
Conducted in America Conducted in Britain → historical and cultural differences
Didn’t really have reality Televised – that would’ve changed the shape and the
television back then nature of what was going on and how these people who
were involved understood what was happening to them
 Obedience is a form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order
 The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to
punish when obedient behaviour is not forthcoming
 People obey because we live in a hierarchically structured society

 When obeying, you do not have the choice to personally change behaviour because you
are following a direct order
 When conforming, you have the ability to change your behaviour

Explain one difference between conformity and obedience (2 marks)

Milgram’s Research
 Milgram (1963) designed a baseline procedure to assess obedience levels
 After the holocaust Milgram decided to research why such a high proportion of the
German population obeyed Hitler’s commands to murder over 6 million Jews

Aim
 To observe whether people would obey a figure of authority when told to harm another
person i.e. evaluating the influence of a destructive authority figure

Procedure
 40 American men volunteered to take part in a study at Yale, supposedly on memory
 Two participants were assigned the role of teacher (true participant) or learner
(confederate)
 The teacher had to give the learner an electric shock every time the learner made a
mistake on the memory task, with increasing volts every time they got one wrong
 The shocks were actually fake but labelled to suggest they were increasingly dangerous
 If the teacher resisted, the experimenter encouraged them to continue with prods
1. “please continue” 3. “it is essential you continue”
2. “the experiment requires you to continue” 4. “you have no other choice”

Findings
 Every participant delivered all the shocks up to 300 volts
 12.5% stopped at 300 volts when the learner started shouting
 65% continued to the highest level of 450 volts (i.e. they were fully obedient)
 Other observations – participants showed signs of extreme tension: sweat, tremble, bite
their lips, nervous laughter

Conclusions
 Milgram concluded that German people are not ‘different’
 American participants were willing to obey orders even if they harmed another person
 It is clear that when a figure has legitimate authority, people will obey it to the point
where they can even do morally wrong actions

Outline what Milgram did in his study of obedience and the findings (6 marks)
Obedience – Evaluation
 All participants were fully de-briefed on the real aims of the study
 This attempted to deal with the ethical breach of the guidelines of protection from
deception and the possibility to give informed consent
 In a follow up study conducted a year later, 84% of participants were glad they were
part of the study and only 1.3% said that they wish they hadn’t been involved
 This suggests that the study left little or no permanent or long-term psychological harm
on the participants
 It can be argued from that the benefit to society of greater knowledge of the power of
obedience is worth the potential of psychological harm to a small number of participants

 External validity has been established by supporting studies

• Holfing’s research (1966) demonstrated that 21 out of 22 nurses in a real hospital ward
would obey orders over the phone from a “Dr Smith” to give 20mg of an unfamiliar drug
at twice the daily maximum
 This suggests that ‘everyday’ individuals are still susceptible to obeying destructive
authority figures

 Lack of ecological validity

 This experiment was carried out in a lab under artificial conditions
 The tasks given to participants are not like those we would encounter in real life
 This means that the methodology lacks mundane realism, producing results which are
low in ecological realism
 It might not be possible to generalise the findings to a real life setting, as people do not
usually receive orders to hurt another person in real life

 Several ethical issues

 Milgram deceived the participants as they believed they were shocking a real person
 The confederate experimenter made it very hard for the participant to withdraw, always
urging them to continue with the shocks
 Many showed signs of psychological distress such as trembling, sweating, nervous laugh
• Three participants had uncontrollable seizures and one was so violent that the
experiment had to be stopped
 Participants were deceived, lacked the right to withdraw and had the right to protection
from harm taken away from them

Outline and evaluate research into obedience (16 marks)

Discuss the contribution of Milgram’s research to our understanding of obedience (16)

Applications
 This research revealed the problem of obedience and so may reduce future obedience in
response to destructive authority figures
• Gives an insight into why people were so willing to kill innocent Jews simply when told
to, and so highlights how we can easily be victims of such pressures
 A general awareness of the power of such influences is useful in establishing social order
and moral behaviours
Obedience – Situational Variables
 After Stanley Milgram conducted his first study on obedience, he carried out a large
number of variations in order to consider the situational variables that might leads to
more or less obedience
 Situational variables are features of the immediate physical and social environment
which may influence a person’s behaviour (such as proximity, location and uniform)
 The alternative is dispositional variables where behaviour is explained in terms of
personality

Use situational factors to explain why people obey authority (4 marks)

Explain the effects of location, proximity and uniform on obedience (6 marks)

Proximity
 Proximity is the physical closeness or distance of an authority figure to the person they
are giving an order to
 Also refers to the physical closeness of the teacher to the learner in Milgram’s studies

 When the teacher and learner were in the same room, obedience dropped to 40%
 In the touch proximity variation, the teacher had to force the learner’s hand onto an
‘electroshock plate’ when he refused to answer a question – obedience dropped to 30%
 In the remote instruction variation, the experimenter gave instructions over the phone
(instead of in the room) – obedience dropped to 20.5%

 Decreased proximity allows people to psychologically distance themselves from the

consequences of their actions
• E.g. when the teacher and learner were physically separated, the teacher was less aware
of the harm they were causing to another person so they were more obedient

Explain what is meant by ‘proximity’ in the context of explaining obedience (2 marks)

Location
 Location is the place where an order is issued
 The relevant factor that influences obedience is the status or prestige associated with
the location

 Milgram conducted a variation in a run-down office block rather than in the prestigious
Yale University setting – obedience fell to 47.5%

 The prestigious university environment gave the study legitimacy and authority
 Participants were more obedient in this location because they perceived that the
experimenter shared this legitimacy and that obedience was expected
 However, obedience was still quite high in the office block because the participants
perceived the ‘scientific’ nature of the procedure

Explain the role of location as a variable affecting obedience (3 marks)

Uniform
 Uniform – people in positions of authority often have a specific outfit that is symbolic of
their authority – this indicates that they are entitled to expect our obedience

 In the baseline study, the experimenter wore a grey lab coat as a symbol of his authority
 In one variation, the role of the experimenter was taken over by an ‘ordinary member of
the public’ in everyday clothes – obedience dropped to 20% (lowest of all variations)

 Uniforms ‘encourage’ obedience because they’re widely recognised symbols of authority

 We accept that someone in a uniform is entitled to expect obedience because their
authority is legitimate (i.e. granted by society)

Situational Variables – Evaluation

 Other studies have demonstrated the influence of situational variables on obedience
 In a field experiment in New York, Bickman (1974) had 3 confederates dress in different
outfits – suit, milkman and a security guard
 The confederates individually stood in the street and asked passers-by to perform tasks
• For example, picking up litter or handing over a coin for the parking meter
 People were twice as likely to obey the security guard
 Supports the view that a situational variable does have a powerful effect on obedience

 His findings have been replicated in other cultures

 Meeus and Raaijmakers (1986) used a more realistic procedure on Dutch participants
 The participants were ordered to say stressful things in an interview to someone
 90% obeyed; and when the experimenter wasn’t present, obedience fell dramatically
 This suggests that Milgram’s findings about obedience are not just limited to Americans
or males, but are valid across cultures and apply to females too

 Replications of Milgram’s research are not very ‘cross-cultural’

 Smith and Bond (1998) identified just two replications between 1968 and 1985 that took
place in ‘non-Western’ countries (India, Jordan)
 Other countries involved (e.g. Spain, Australia, Scotland) are not that culturally different
from the United States – they have similar notions about the role of authority
 Therefore, it may not be appropriate to conclude that Milgram’s findings (including
those about proximity, location, uniform) apply to people in all or most cultures

 Participants may have been aware the procedure was faked

 Orne and Holland (1968) pointed out that this is even more likely in variations because
of the extra manipulation of variables
• Good example is the variation where the experimenter is replaced by an ordinary person
 Even Milgram recognised that this situation was so contrived that some participants may
well have worked out the truth
 Therefore, in all Milgram’s studies it is unclear whether the findings are genuinely due to
the operation of obedience or because the participants saw through the deception and
just ‘play-acted’ (i.e. responded to demand characteristics)
Outline two limitations of Milgram’s research into the situational variables that affect
obedience (4 marks)

Evaluate Milgram’s research into the situational variables that affect obedience (10 marks)

Outline research into the effect of situational variables on obedience and discuss what this
tells us about why people obey (16 marks)

Obedience – Situational Explanations

 Proximity, location and uniform are the situational variables that affect obedience levels
 But the agentic state and legitimacy of authority are two explanations to explain why
people obey – because of characteristics of people around you and the situation

Agentic State
 The agentic state is a mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our
behaviour because we believe we’re acting for an authority figure i.e. as their agent
 This frees us from the demands of our consciences and allows us to obey even a
destructive authority figure

 An ‘agent’ is someone who acts for or is in place of another

 They experience high anxiety (moral strain) when they realise what they are doing is
wrong, but feel powerless to disobey

Outline the agentic state as an explanation for obedience to authority (3 marks)

Autonomous State
 The opposite of being in an agentic state is being in an autonomous state
 Autonomy means to be independent or free
 An autonomous state is freedom to behave according to your own principles, with a
sense of responsibility for your actions

 The shift from autonomy to ‘agency’ is called the agentic shift

 Milgram (1974) suggested this occurs when there is a perceived authority figure
 This is because they have more power, a higher position in the social hierarchy and in
social groups, when one person is in charge, others defer to the legitimate authority

Binding Factors
 Milgram found that many of his participants wanted to stop but seemed powerless to do
so; instead, they remained in an agentic state because of binding factors
• If the individual were to break off the commitment made to an authority figure, they will
appear arrogant and rude – so the fear of appearing this way binds them into obedience

 Binding factors are aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise
the damaging effect of their behaviour (i.e. justify their actions) and thus reducing their
‘moral strain’
Evaluation – Agentic State
 Milgram’s own studies support the role of the agentic state in obedience
 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 the learner is harmed?”
 When the experimenter replied that he himself was responsible, the participants often
went through the procedure quickly with no further objections
 This shows that once participants perceived they were no longer responsible for their
own behaviour, they acted more easily as the experimenter’s agent

 The agentic state shift doesn’t explain many research findings about obedience
• E.g. It does not explain the findings of Rank and Jacobson’s (1977) study
 They found that 16 out of 18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to
administer an excessive drug dose to a patient
 The doctor was an obvious authority figure, but almost all the nurses remained
autonomous, as did many of Milgram’s participants
 This suggests that the agentic state can only account for some situations of obedience

 Cannot explain Nazi behaviour

 Mandel (1998) described how the German Police Reserve shot civilians in a small Polish
town even though they were not directly ordered to (and were told they could be
assigned to other duties if they preferred) – i.e. they behaved autonomously
 This challenges agentic state as they were not powerless to obey

Evaluate the agentic state explanation for obedience (10 marks)

Legitimacy of Authority
 Legitimacy of authority is an explanation for obedience which suggests that we are more
likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us
 This authority is justified by the individual’s position of power within a social hierarchy

 Most of us accept that authority figures have to be allowed to exercise social power over
others because this allows society to function smoothly

 One consequence of this is that some people are granted the power to punish others
 Problems arise when legitimate authority becomes destructive
 History has shown too often that powerful leaders (Hitler, Stalin) can use their legitimate
powers for destructive purposes, ordering people to behave in ways that are cruel

Outline legitimacy of authority as an explanation for obedience to authority (3 marks)

Evaluation – Legitimacy of Authority

 Useful account of cultural difference in obedience

 Many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which people obey authority
• Kilham and Mann (1974) found that only 16% of female Australian participants went all
the way up to 450V in a Milgram-style study
• However Mandell (1971) found that 85% of German participants were fully obedient
 Shows that in some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and
entitled to demand obedience from individuals
 Reflects the way that different societies are structured and how children are raised to
perceive authority figures

 Tarnow (2000) provided support through studying aviation accidents that had occurred
 A review of serious aircraft accidents in the US between 1978 and 1990 was conducted
using the flight voice recorded where flight crew actions had contributed to the crash
 He found an excessive dependence on the captain’s authority and expertise; and the
crew said nothing, even when they noticed the captain taking a particularly risky tactic
 They found that this lack of monitoring made up for 51% of accidents they investigated
 Suggests that the legitimacy of authority is a powerful explanation for obedience

 Cannot explain instances of disobedience in a hierarchy where the legitimacy of

authority is clear and accepted
 In Rank and Jacobson’s study (1977), most of the participants were disobedient despite
working in a rigidly hierarchical authority structure
 Also, a significant minority of Milgram’s participants disobeyed despite recognising the
Experimenter’s scientific authority
 This suggests that some people may just be more (or less) obedient than others
 It is possible that innate tendencies to obey or disobey have a greater influence on
behaviour than the legitimacy of an authority figure

Evaluate the legitimacy of authority explanation for obedience (10 marks)

Situational Explanations – Applications

 Agentic state and legitimacy of authority explanations can be used to successfully

explain several real-life examples of obedience towards destructive authority figures
• For example, the My Lai Massacres, whereby thousands of American soldiers pillaged
through Vietnamese villages and murdered civilians
 This can be explained in terms of agent state theory, where the soldiers were obeying
orders from their Generals and so shifted responsibility for their actions onto them
 This authority was legitimate (justified) due to their high position within the Army’s
social hierarchy ranks
 Therefore, this suggests that both theories are valid explanations of obedience

Outline and evaluate two explanations of obedience (16 marks)

Obedience – Dispositional Explanation

 Not all psychologists accept that obedience can be fully explained by factors in the
situation or the social structure
 They reason that there must be at least some role of the personality of the individual

 A dispositional explanation is any explanation of behaviour that highlights the

importance of the individual’s personality (i.e. their disposition)
 Such explanations are often contrasted with situational explanations

The Authoritarian Personality

 An Authoritarian Personality (AP) is a type of personality that Adorno argued was

especially susceptible to obeying people in authority
 Such individuals are also thought to be submissive to those of higher status and
dismissive of inferiors; and they believe that everything is either right or wrong and
they’re unconformable with uncertainty

 Adorno believed the AP type forms in childhood, mostly as a result of harsh parenting
 This parenting style typically features extremely strict discipline, an expectation of
absolute loyalty, impossibly high standards and severe criticism of perceived failings
 He believed that these childhood experiences create resentment and hostility

Outline Authoritarian Personality as an explanation for obedience (4 marks)

Adorno’s Research

 Adorno (1950) studied more than 2000 middle-class white Americans and their
unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups
 The researchers developed an F-scale to measure an Authoritarian Personality

 The F-scale is used to measure the different components that make up the AP
 F stood for fascist – an advocate or follower of fascism (an authoritarian and
nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organisation)
o “Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues for children”

 Those with an Authoritarian Personality tend to be:

o Hostile to those with an inferior status, but obedient to people with high status
o Rigid in their opinions and beliefs, and traditional values
o Saw the world as black and white
o Enforced strict adherence to social rules and hierarchies

 Adorno found that people who scored highly on the F-scale tended to have been raised
by parents who used an authoritarian parenting style
 With a strong emphasis on obedience, they acquire the same authoritarian attitudes
 High right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) people possess 3 personality characteristics:
o Conventionalism
o Authoritarian aggression
o Authoritarian submission

Dispositional Explanation – Evaluation

 Evidence from Milgram supporting the Authoritarian Personality

 Milgram and Elms (1966) interviewed a small sample of people who had participated in
the original obedience studies, who had been fully obedient
• They all completed the F-scale – all 20 of these obedient participants score significantly
higher overall than a comparison group of 20 disobedient participants
 The two groups were clearly quite different in terms of authoritarianism
 These findings support Adorno’s view that obedient people may well show similar
characteristics to people who have an Authoritarian Personality

 However, when the research analysed the individual subscales of the F-scale, they found
that the obedient participants had a number of characteristics unusual for the AP
• For example, unlike authoritarians, Milgram’s obedient participants general:
o did not glorify their fathers
o did not experience high levels of punishment in childhood
o did not have particularly hostile attitudes towards their mothers
 This means that the link between obedience and authoritarianism is complex
 The obedient participants were unlike authoritarians in so many ways that
authoritarianism is unlikely to be a useful predictor of obedience

 Several studies have reported that more authoritarian participants are more obedient
 Dambrun and Vatine (2010) used a ‘virtual immersive environment’ (i.e. used a video
instead of a live actor) to overcome the problem that the shocks may have real or fake
• Despite this, participants still tended to respond as if the situation was real
• There was a clear correlation between participants RWA scores and the maximum
voltage administrated
 This supports the findings of Adorno as participants with a higher RWA score were more
likely to obey the authority figure

 The F-scale only measures the tendency towards an extreme form of right-wing ideology
 Christie (1954) argued that the F-scale is a politically-biased interpretation of AP
 He points out that extreme right-wing and left-wing ideologies have a lot in common
• E.g. they both emphasise the importance of complete obedience in political authority
 This means Adorno’s theory is not a comprehensive dispositional explanation that
accounts for obedience to authority across the whole political spectrum

Describe and evaluate one dispositional explanation for personality (16 marks)

Discuss one situational and one dispositional explanation for obedience (16 marks)
Resistance to Social Influence

 Resistance to social influence refers to the ability of people to withstand the social
pressure to conform to the majority or to obey authority
 This ability to withstand social pressure is influenced by both situational and
dispositional factors
 There are two explanations of resisting social influence – social support, locus of control

Explain what is meant by ‘resistance to social influence’ (2 marks)

Social Support
 Social support – the presence of people who resist pressures to conform or obey can
help others to do the same
 These people act as models to show others that resistance to social influence is possible

 The pressure to conform can be resisted if there is another person not conforming
 For example, in Asch’s (1951) experiment
 The fact that someone else is not following the majority enables the naïve participant to
be free to follow their own conscience
 The confederate acts as a ‘model’ of independent behaviour
 Their dissent gives rise to more dissent because it shows that the majority is no longer
unanimous

 The pressure to obey can be resisted if there is another person who is seen to disobey
 In one of Milgram’s variations, the rate of obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when
the genuine participant was joined by a disobedient confederate
 The other person’s disobedience acts as a ‘model’ of dissent for the participant to copy
and this frees him to act from his own conscience
 This disobedient model challenges the legitimacy of authority figure, making it easier for
others to disobey

Outline social support as an explanation of resistance to social influence (4 marks)

Using an example, explain how social support could lead to resistance to social influence (4)

 One strength is research evidence for the positive effects of social support
 Albrecht (2006) evaluated Teen Fresh Start USA, an 8-week programme to help pregnant
adolescents resist peer pressure to smoke
 Social support was provided by a slightly older mentor
 At the end of the programme, adolescents who had a mentor were significantly less
likely to smoke than a control group of participants who did not have a mentor
 This shows that social support can help young people resist social influence as part of an
intervention in the real world
 Another strength is research evidence to support the role of dissenting peers in resisting
obedience
 In Gamson’s (1982) research, participants were told to produce evidence that would be
used to help an oil company run a smear campaign
 Researchers found higher levels of resistance in their study than Milgram did – this was
probably because participants were in groups so could discuss what they were told to do
 88% of participants rebelled against their orders
 This shows that peer support can lead to disobedience by undermining the legitimacy of
an authority figure

 In an Asch-type task, Allen and Levine (1971) showed that that social support does not
always help
 When the dissenter had obviously poor eyesight (thick glasses) resistance was only 36%
 Many participants must have concluded that the usefulness of this person’s support was
low because they could not see the lines properly to judge them
 This shows that social support is ineffective and an invalid explanation of resistance

Locus of Control
 Locus of control refers to the sense we each have about what directs events in our lives
 Internals believe they are mostly responsible for what happens to them (internal LOC)
 Externals believe it is mainly a matter of luck of other outside forces (external LOC)

 The LOC continuum – LOC is a scale and individuals vary in their position on it
 People are not just either internal or external

 People with a high internal LOC are more able to resist pressure to conform or obey
 If a person takes personal responsibility for their actions and experiences, they tend to
base their decisions on their own beliefs rather than depending on others’ opinions

 Another explanation is that people with a high LOC tend to be more self-confident, more
achievement-oriented and have higher intelligence
 These traits lead to greater resistance to social influence

Explain how the concept of locus of control can be used to explain why a person may resist
social influence (2 marks)

 Research evidence to support the link between LOC and resistance to obedience
 Holland (1967) repeated Milgram’s baseline study and measured whether participants
were internals or externals
 He found that 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level (i.e. they
showed some resistance), whereas only 23% of externals did not continue
 i.e. internals showed greater resistance to authority in a Milgram-type situation
 This shows that resistance is at least partly related to LOC, which increases the validity of
LOC as an explanation of disobedience
 One limitation is evidence that challenges the link between LOC and resistance
 Twenge (2004) analysed data from American LOC studies conducted over a 40 years
 The data showed that over this time, people became more resistant to obedience but
also more external – this was a surprising result
 If resistance is linked to an internal LOC, we’d expect people to become more internal
 This suggests that LOC is not a valid explanation to how people resist social influence

 Rotter (1982) points out that LOC is not necessarily the most important factor in
determining whether someone resists social influence
 LOC’s role depends on the situation – it only affects their behaviour in new situations
 If you have conformed or obeyed in a specific situation in the past, the chances are you
will do so again in that situation, regardless where you are on the LOC scale
 Therefore LOC is a valid explanation because it is linked to resistance
 But its validity is limited because it does not predict resistance in new social situations

Outline one or more explanations of resistance to social influence (4 marks)

Discuss social support and locus of control as explanations of resistance to social influence
(16 marks)

Minority Influence

 Minority influence is a form of social influence in which one person or a minority of

people persuades others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours
 Leads to internalisation or conversion, in which private attitudes are changed as well as
public behaviours
 There are 3 main processes in minority influence: consistency, commitment, flexibility

Explain what is meant by ‘minority influence’ (2 marks)

Consistency
 Minority influence is most effective if the minority keeps the same beliefs, both over
time and between all the individuals that form the minority
 Consistency is effective because it draws attention to the minority view

Commitment
 Minority influence is more powerful if the minority demonstrates dedication to their
position, for example, by making personal sacrifices
 Sometimes minorities engage in quite extreme activities to draw attention to their views
 It is important that these extreme activities present some risk to the minority because
this shows greater commitment and that they’re not acting out of self-interest
Flexibility
 Minority influence is more effective if the minority show flexibility by accepting the
possibility of compromise
 They must negotiate their position with the majority rather than try to enforce it
 Relentless consistency could be counter-productive if it is seen by the majority as
unbending and unreasonable
 For example, someone who is extremely consistent, who simply repeats the same old
arguments and behaviours again and again may be seen as rigid and dogmatic
 The key is to strike a balance between consistency and flexibility

Briefly explain what is meant by ‘consistency, commitment and flexibility’ as factors that
enable a minority to influence a majority (3 marks)

Snowballing
 The snowball effect is a process that starts from an initial state of small significance and
increasingly becomes larger
 Over time, increasing numbers of people switch from the majority position to the
minority position – they have become ‘converted’
 The more this happens, the faster the rate of conversion
 Gradually, the minority view becomes the majority view and change has occurred

Outline the process by which minority influence brings about a change of views (4 marks)

Moscovici (1969)
 Aim – to investigate if a minority could also bring about conformity

 32 groups of six female participants took part in the study, supposedly on perception
 Each group was presented with 36 blue slides differing in intensity of shade
 Participants were asked to say whether the slides were blue or green
 In each group there were two confederates who either consistently stated they were
green, or said the slides were green on two thirds of occasions

 When confederates were consistent, 8% of the majority gave the same wrong answer
 When confederates were inconsistent, agreement with the colour green fell to 1.25%
 32% of participants conformed with the minority on at least on occasion

 Moscovici concluded that consistency is vital for minority influence to occur

 If a minority consistently give the same answer, they are more likely to sway a majority

Outline research into minority influence (4 marks)

Minority Influence – Evaluation

 Research evidence demonstrates the importance of consistency

 Moscovici showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on changing
views of other people than an inconsistent opinion
 Woody (1994) carried out a meta-analysis of 100 similar studies
 He found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential
 This suggests that presenting a consistent view is a minimum requirement for a minority
trying to influence a majority

 Evidence shows that a change in the majority’s position involves deeper processing
 Martin (2003) measured participant’s agreement to a particular message / viewpoint
 Then, each group either heard a minority or majority agree or disagree with their view
 Results showed that people were less willing to change their opinions if they had
listened to a minority group than if they had listened to a majority group
 This suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a
more enduring effect, supporting the central argument on how minority influence works

 Real world social influence situations are much more complicated than these tasks
 For example, majorities usually have a lot more power and status than minorities
 Minorities are very committed to their causes because they face hostile opposition
 These features are usually absent from minority influence research
 Therefore Martin (2003) findings are very limited in what they can tell us about minority
influence in real life situations

 The tasks involved are very artificial

 Research is therefore far removed from how majorities change behaviour in real life
 This means findings of the minority influence studies are lacking in external validity
 Therefore limited in telling us how minority influence works in real-world social situation

Describe and evaluate research into minority influence (16 marks)

Social Influence and Social Change

 Social influence is the process by which individuals and groups change each other’s
attitudes and behaviours; this includes conformity, obedience and minority influence

 Social change occurs when whole societies, rather than just individuals, adopt new
attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things
 Examples include women’s suffrage, gay rights and environmental issues

 Minority is a powerful force for innovation and social change

 Social change through minority influence requires a ‘conversion’ process to occur
 There are certain conditions / stages in this conversion process:
1. Drawing attention
o Marches draw attention to a situation, providing social proof of the problem
 Civil rights marches in American in 1950s and 1960s

2. Consistency
o Individual activists remain consistent with the main group’s position
o People take part in marches over several years, always presenting the same view
 Civil rights activists always represented the same non-aggressive messages

3. Deeper processing
o Activism results in many people who had just simply accept the status quo began
to think deeply about the unjustness of it
o This internal processing leads to a cognitive conflict between the individual
currently believes and what the minority believe

4. The augmentation principle

o If a minority appears willing to suffer for their view, they’re taken more seriously
o This personal risk indicates a strong belief and augments their message
 Freedom riders challenged segregation of transport and were often beaten

5. The snowball effect

o A process that starts from an initial state of small significance and increasingly
becomes larger, such as starting with only a small group of people supporting an
idea and gradually more and more people are supportive
o It will eventually reach a ‘tipping point’ which leads to wide-scale social change
 Activists (e.g. Martin Luther King) gradually got the attention of the government
 In 1964 the US Civil Rights prohibited discrimination

6. Social cryptomnesia
o When social change occurs, the new attitude becomes an integral part of the
society, and the source of the minority influence that led to it is forgotten
o Some people have no memory of the events that led to that change

Describe how social influence processes contribute to social change. Use an example (6)

Social Change – Evaluation

 Psychologists can explain how minority influence brings about social change
 Nemeth (2009) claims social change is due to the type of thinking that minorities inspire
 When people consider minority arguments, they engage in divergent thinking
 This type of thinking is broad rather than narrow, in which the thinker actively seeks info
 Nemeth argues this leads to better decisions and more create solutions to social issues
 This shows why dissenting minorities are valuable – they stimulate new ideas and open
minds in a way that majorities cannot
 Martin and Hewstone (1999) found minority influence led to more creative and novel
judgements than minority influences
 This supports the idea that it is the minority which have a greater effect in drawing
attention to issues and being a social force for innovation and social change

 Social change through minority influence may be very gradual

 History challenges the view that minorities can bring about social change quickly
 For example, it took the Suffragettes nearly 100 years to win their fight
 There is a strong tendency for human beings to conform to the majority position and so
groups are more likely to maintain the status quo rather than engage in social change
 Therefore, the influence of a minority is frequently more underlying that direct
 It creates the potential for change rather than actual social change itself

 Being perceived as ‘deviant’ limits the influence of minorities in the eyes of the majority
 Members of the majority may not want to align themselves with the minority position
because they do not want to be seen as deviant themselves
 The message of the minority would then have very little impact because the focus is on
the source of the message (i.e. the deviant minority)
 Minorities face the double challenge of avoiding being portrayed as deviant and also
making people directly embrace their position
 This therefore limits the potential for minorities to influence social change

 However, Burgoon (1995) argued that deviant behaviours from minority groups alerted
and aroused the majority
 This leads them to take notice and consider the minority views more deeply
 This suggests it is the violation of social norms by minority groups which leads to
systematic processing, which begins the process of social change

Evaluate the role of social influence processes in social change (10 marks)

Discuss the contribution research into social influence processes has made to our
understanding of social change (16 marks)

Lessons from Conformity

 In Asch’s research, one dissenting confederate broke the power of the majority,
encourage others to do likewise
 This dissent has the potential to lead to social change
 A different approach is one used by environmental and health campaigns which exploit
conformity processes by appealing to normative social influence
 They do this by providing information about what other people are doing
 Examples include putting normative messages on litter bins (“Bin it – others do”)
 i.e. social change is encouraged by drawing attention to what the majority are doing
 Research has shown that this approach does work
 Nolan (2008) aimed to see if they could change people’s energy use habits
 The researchers hung messages on the front doors of houses in San Diego each week for
a month; the key message was that most residents were trying to reduce their usage
 As a control, some residents had no reference to other people’s behavioural on the note
 There were significant decreases in energy usage in the first group compared to the 2nd
 This shows that conformity (majority influence) can lead to social change through the
operation of normative social influence i.e. it is a valid explanation

 However, some studies show that people’s behaviour is not always changed through
exposing them to social norms
 Foxcroft (2015) reviewed 70 studies where the social norms approach was used to
reduce student alcohol use
 He found only a small reduction in drinking quantity and no effect on drinking frequency
 Therefore it seems that using normative social influence does not always produce long-
term social change

Lessons from Obedience

 Milgram clearly demonstrated the importance of disobedient role models
 Zimbardo (2007) suggested how obedience can be used to create social change through
the process of gradual commitment
 Once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes much more difficult to resist a bigger one
 People essentially ‘drift’ into a new kind of behaviour