What is Conformity: A change in behaviour as a result of a real or imagines pressure from others

Explanations for Conformity

• Informational Social Influence: when someone conforms bc they do not know what to do but they want to

be correct. They follow the majority as they believe they know what is the right thing to do

• Normative Social Influence: Behaving in the same way as others in order to be liked or accepted by a

group. The person may publicly change their behaviour but privately disagree

Types of conformity

• Internalisation (ISI): Acceptance of the behaviour/belief of the majority to the extent that it becomes a part

of their own belief system. They conform both publicly and privately even if the majority is no longer present

• Identification: Behaving in the same way as a group bc we value the group and can identify with the memebers

of the group. We don’t necessarily agree w everything the group believes and some behaviours will last when the

majority is not present

• Compliance (NSI): Where the individual changes their own behaviour to fit in w the group. They do not agree

but they go along q it publicly. This type of conformity only lasts as long as the majority is present
A03 - Explanations for Conformity

1. Informational influence is moderated by the type of task

• In formational influence is less likely to occur if the topic is about fact not opinion

• E.g if ppts were asked if bristol is the most populated city in SW England there answer can be determined through

objectives such as physical things like census data

• However if ppts were asked if bristol is the most fun city in SW England, informational influence is most likely to

occur since there is no criteria as it is based on a social census where ppl are experts or not

• As a result, majorities should exert greater influence on issues of social rather than physical reality, and this is

precisely what research tends to show (Laughlin, 1999).

2. Normative influence may not be detected

• Ppl tend to undermine how much normative influence affects their behaviour and how much they acc conform

• Nolan et al. (2008) investigated whether ppl detected the influence of social norms on heir energy conservation

behaviour

• When asked what factors influence their own energy conservation, ppl believed that the behaviour of neighbours

had the least impact on their own energy conservation yet results showed that it had the strongest impact

• Tf, This suggests that people rely on beliefs about what should motivate their behaviour, and so under-detect the

impact of normative influence

Lab
Experiment

Variables Affecting Conformity (variations of Asch’s Study)

Group Size:

• An individual is more likely to conform when in a larger group.

• There was low conformity with group size of confederates were less than 3 - any more than 3 and the conformity

rose by 31.8%

• A person is more likely to conform if all members of the group are in agreement and give the same answer, because

it will increase their confidence in correctness of the group, and decrease their confidence in their own answer.

• Conformity does not seem to increase in groups larger than four so this is considered the optimal group size.

• This shows that the majority must be at least 3 to exert an influence, but an overwhelming majority is not needed

in all instances to bring about conformity.

• An individual is more likely to conform when the group is unanimous i.e. all give the same answer, as opposed to

them all giving different answers.

• When joined by another participant or disaffected confederate who gave the correct answer, conformity fell from

32% to 5.5%.

• If different answers are given, it falls from 32% to 9%.

• The more unanimous the group is, the more confidence the participant will have that they are all correct, and

therefore the participant’s answer is more likely to be incorrect

• Unanimity is vital in establishing a consistent majority view, which is particularly important by providing normative

social influence through preventing any conflicting views arising.

Task Difficulty:

• An individual is more likely to conform when the task is difficult

• For example, Asch altered the (comparison) lines (e.g. A, B, C) making them more similar in length.

• Since it was harder to judge the correct answer conformity increased.

• When the task is difficult, we are more uncertain of our answer so we look to others for confirmation.

• The more difficult the task the greater the conformity.

• This suggests that informational social influence is a major mechanism for conformity when the situation is

ambiguous and the individual does not have enough of their own knowledge or information to make an informed

decision independently, and so has to look towards others.

High internal validity:

• There was strict control over extraneous variables, such as timing of assessment and the type of task used.

• The participants did the experiment before without confederates to see if they actually knew the correct answer,

thus removing the confounding variable of a lack of knowledge.

• This suggests that valid and reliable ‘cause and effect’ relationships can be established, as well as valid conclusions.

Lacks ecological validity

• However it was based on peoples’ perception of lines which means that the study lacks mundane realism

• This means that the findings cannot be generalised to real life as it does not reflect the complexity of real life

conformity

• I.e where there are many other confounding variables and majorities exert influence irrespective of being a large

group

• Tf, Asch’s study lacks ecological validity

Supports normative social influence

• Participants reported that they conformed to fit in with the group,

• This means that it supports the idea of normative influence, which states that people conform to fit in when

privately disagreeing with the majority.

Lacked (Temporal) Validity

• However the social context of the 1950s may have affected results
• For example, Perrin and Spencer criticised the study by stating that the period that the experiment was conducted

in influenced the results because it was an anti-Communist period in America when people were more scared to be

different i.e. McCarthyism.

• Thus, the study can be said to lack temporal validity because the findings cannot be generalised across all time

periods.

Conformity to Social Roles - Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment

Social Roles: The parts ppl play as members of various social groups which meet the expectations of the situation

e.g parent child. Involves identification, not internalisation as the conformity is public & private but only temporarily
A03 - Zimbardo’s SPE

High Control

• A strength of the SPE is that Zimbardo and his colleagues had some control over variables.

• For example the selection of participants.

• Emotionally stable individuals were chosen and randomly assigned to the roles of guard and prisoner.

• This was one way in which the researchers tried to rule out individual personality differences as an explanation of

the findings.

• If guards and prisoners behaved very differently, but were in those roles only by chance, then their behaviour must

have been due to the pressures of the situation.

• Having such control over variables is a strength because it increases the internal validity of the study.

• Tf, we can be confident in drawing conclusions about the influence of social roles on behaviour

Lacks ecological validity

• The study suffered from demand characteristics.

• For example, the participants knew that they were participating in a study and therefore may have changed their

behaviour, either to please the experimenter (a type of demand characteristic) or in response to being observed

(participant reactivity, which acts as a confounding variable).

• The participants also knew that the study was not real so they claimed that they simply acted according to the

expectations associated with their role rather genuinely adopting it.

• This was seen particularly with qualitative data gathered from an interview with one guard, who said that he based

his performance from the stereotypical guard role portrayed in the film Cool Hand Luke,
• TF, further reducing the validity of the findings

Culture & Beta Bias present

• However, Zimbardo’s study has culture and gender bias

• This is bc the sample used consisted of only American male students, which means that findings can not be

generalised to other cultures and women.

• This means that Zimbardo undermines the differences between men and women resulting in beta bias so we can

not know whether women may have behaved similarly or differently from men.

• As well as, only using American participants is a weakness as we can not say how ppl from non-American cultures

would have behaved

• E.g ppl from more collectivist cultures such as China or Japan may be more conformist to their prescribed social

roles bc such cultures value the needs of the group over the needs of the individual

• Tf, the study is not universal

Explanations for Obedience

Agentic State:

• This is when a person believes that someone else will take responsibility for their own actions.

• When a person shifts from an autonomous state (the state in which a person believes they will take responsibility

for their own actions) to the agentic state, it is called an Agentic Shift.

• Tf, agency theory is the idea that people are more likely to obey when they are in the agentic state as they do not

believe they will suffer the consequences of those actions.

• This is because they believe that they are acting on behalf of their agent.
• Different binding factors allow a person to ignore & minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour, reducing the

moral strain they’re feeling

A03 - Agentic State

The agentic state explanation and real- life obedience

• Milgram claimed that people shift back and forth between the autonomous state and the agentic state.

• However, this idea of rapidly shifting states fails to explain the very gradual and irreversible transition that Lifton

(1986) found in his study of German doctors working at Auschwitz.

• Lifton found that these doctors had changed from ordinary medical professionals, concerned only with the welfare

of their patients, into men and women capable of carrying out vile and potentially lethal experiments on the helpless

prisoners.

• Tf, the theory of agentic state does not apply to real examples

Legitimacy of Authority:

• This describes how credible the figure of authority is.

• People are more likely to obey them if they are seen as credible in terms of being morally good/right, and legitimate

(i.e. legally based or law abiding).

• This is why students are more likely to listen to their parents or teachers than other unknown adults.

• When legitimate authority becomes destructive it becomes destructive authority

Obedience in the cockpit – a test of legitimate authority

• Tarnow (2000) provided support for the power of legitimate authority through a study of aviation accidents.

• He studied data from a US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) review of all serious aircraft accidents

in the US between 1978 and 1990 where a flight voice recorder (the ‘black box’) was available, and where flight

crew actions were a contributing factor in the crash.

• As with Milgram’s study, where the participant accepts the experimenter’s definition of the situation, Tarnow

found excessive dependence on the captain’s authority and expertise – one second officer claimed that, although

he noticed the captain taking a particularly risky approach, he said nothing as he assumed ‘the captain must know

what he’s doing’

• Tf, supporting the theory of legitimacy of authority as it demonstrates how ppl depend on those who they deem

credible
Milgram - Research into Obedience

The
experiment
requires
to
you
continue
Situational Factors/Variables Affecting Obedience

Proximity:

• A person is more likely to obey someone wearing a uniform as it gives them a higher status and greater sense of

legitimacy

• It was found that obedience was much higher when the experimenter wore a lab coat as opposed to normal clothes.

• However, demand characteristics were particularly evident in this condition, with even Milgram admitting that many

participants could see through this deception.

Location:

• A person is more likely to obey someone in a location linked to higher status and legitimacy.

• Milgram’s study was conducted at a prestigious American university (Yale), and so obedience was greater than in a

variation of the study conducted in a rundown office.

• This is because the prestigious nature of specific locations demand obedience from participants as well as

potentially increasing the trust that they place in the researchers.

Uniform:

• A person is more likely to obey when they are less able to see the negative consequences of their actions and are

in closer proximity to the authority figure.

• This is because it increases the pressure to obey and decreases the pressure to resist.

• In Milgram’s study, obedience was higher when the experimenter was in the same room (62.5%) as the participant

as opposed to being in a different room and speaking over the phone i.e. the remote instruction condition (20.5%

obedience levels).
AO3 - Milgram

Lack of ecological validity

An issue with Milgram’s study is that it was conducted in a lab. This means that the study was highly controlled and

the tasks given to participants are not like those we would encounter in real life, so ppts obedience levels may not

have been the same in real life. E.g shooting somebody in real life is different from flicking a switch. This means that

the methodology lacks mundane realism. Therefore producing results which are low in ecological validity

Good External Validity

However, Though Milgram’s study may appear at first glance to lack ecological validity as it was conducted in a lab,

the central feature of of this situation was the relationship between the authority figure (experimenter) and the ppt.

Milgram argued that the lab environment accurately reflected wider authority relationships in real life. Other research

supports this argument. Hofling et al studied nurses on a hospital ward and found that 21/22 nurses obeyed a doctor

to increase the dosage to 2x advised on the bottle. This suggests that the process of obedience to authority that

occurred in Milgram’s lab study can be generalised to other situations. Therefore his findings, despite the high levels

of control, do have ecological validity

Ethical Issues Present

Milgram's study has lots of ethical issues such as informed consent, deception, psychological harm and right to

withdraw. For example participants had nervous laughing fits and a couple had seizures. Participants also had the

knowledge that they were capable of administering shocks, which could have detrimental effects on their mental

health. Therefore lowering the reputation of Milgram’s psychological research.

Although, Milgram’s study has been considered unethical, he can be praised for his thorough and careful debriefing on

the real aims of the study, in an attempt to deal with the ethical breach of the guideline of o deception and the

possibility to give informed consent. In a follow up study conducted a year later - 84% of participants were glad they

took part and 74% felt had learned something. This suggests that the study left little to no permanent or long-term

psychological harm on ppts

Dispositional Explanation of Obedience - Authoritarian Personality

Dispositional Explanation: An internal explanation of obedience that highlights the importance of the

individuals personality

Authoritarian personality: is a type of personality where individuals are rigid thinkers, who obeyed authority,

saw the world as black and white (no grey area) and enforced strict adherence to social rules and hierarchies

• They believed in dominance over minorities and “inferiors” and had a cognitive style of no “fuzziness” between

categories of ppl w fixed stereotypes of other groups

• Adorno et al used the California F scale to measure different components of the authoritarian personality

• He found that ppl who scored high tended to have been raised by parents who used an authoritarian parenting style

inc physical punishments

• Tf, kids who grew up in authoritarian family have a strong emphasis on obedience and thus acquire authoritarian

attitudes through process of learning and imitation

• Fromm (1941) first created the F scale as an attempt to to explain those holding right wing conservative views as
those with an authoritarian personality tend to have conventional attitudes and show high levels of prejudice

• Altemeyer (1981) refined the concept of the Authoritarian personality by identifying three of the original personality

variables that he referred to as right-wing authoritarianism (RWA).

• According to Altemeyer, high-RWA people possess three important personality characteristics that predispose

them to obedience:

• Conventionalism – an adherence to conventional norms and values.

• Authoritarian aggression – aggressive feelings toward people who violate these norms.

• • Authoritarian submission – uncritical submission to legitimate authorities.

AO3 - Dispositional Explanation of Obedience

Research Support - Elms & Milgram

Elms & Milgram’s study supports the dispositional explanation of obedience as they selected 20 “obedient” ppts

(those who had continued to the final shock level) and 20 “disobedient” participants (those who had refused to

continue at some point in the experiment) from Milgram’s og study to complete the F scale in order to measure their

levels of authoritarianism. They found higher levels of authoritarianism among ppts classedas obedient compared w

those classed as disobedient/defiant. This suggest that obedient ppts saw the authority figure in Milgram’s study as

clearly more admirable, and the learner as much less so. This was not the case among the defiant participants. Tf

these findings tell us that the obedient group was higher on the trait of ‘authoritarianism’, Which suggests that

dispositional factors have an impact on why ppl obey. However, this link is merely a correlation between two measured

variables. This makes it impossible to draw the conclusion that authoritarian personality causes obedience on the basis

of this result. Tf, It may be that a ‘third factor’ is involved.

Research by Middendorp and Meloen (1990) has generally found that less-educated people are consistently more

authoritarian and have a strong desire to obey authority than the well educated. Milgram also found that participants

with lower levels of education tended to be more obedient than those with higher levels of education. This means that

education level of ppt may be more influential on their levels of authoritarianism and obedience. This suggests that

instead of authoritarianism causing obedience, lack of education could be responsible for both authoritarianism and

obedience. Tf, demonstrating how AP is a weak explanation of obedience.

Social Context is more important than the dispositional factors

Although Milgram accepted that there might be a dispositional basis to obedience and disobedience, he did not believe

the evidence for this was particularly strong. Milgram showed that variations in the social context of the study (e.g.

proximity of the victim, location, presence of disobedient peers) were the primary cause of differences in participants’

levels of obedience, not variations in personality. He believed that the specific social situation participants found

themselves in caused them to obey or resist regardless of their personalities. Tf, relying on an explanation of

obedience based purely on authoritarianism lacks the flexibility to account for these variations, which suggests that

the social context is more important

Political bias

Another limitation is that the F-scale only measures the tendency towards an extreme form of right-wing ideology.

Christie and Jahoda (1954) argued that the F-scale is a politically-biased interpretation of Authoritarian Personality.

They point out the reality of left-wing authoritarianism in the shape of Russian Bolshevism or Chinese Maoism. In
fact, extreme right-wing and left-wing ideologies have a lot in common. For example they both emphasise the

importance of complete obedience to legitimate political authority. This means that Adorno’s theory is not a

comprehensive dispositional explanation that accounts for obedience to authority across the whole political spectrum

Resistance to Social Influence

Social Support: The presence of ppl who resist pressures to conform or obey influences others to do the same.

These ppl act as role models to show others that resistance is possible

Social Support & Resisting Conformity:

• Social support can help people to resist conformity.

• The pressure to conform can be reduced if there are other people present who are not conforming.

• E.g in Asch’s study the social support offered by an ally (who resisted the majority as well) led to a reduction in

conformity from 33% (with a unanimous majority) to just 5.5%.

• The person not conforming doesn’t have to be giving the ‘right’ answer but simply the fact that someone else is not

following the majority appears to enable a person to be free to follow their own conscience.

• This other person acts as a ‘model’.

• However, Asch’s research also showed that if this ‘non-conforming’ person starts conforming again, so does the

naïve participant.

• Thus the effect of dissent is not long lasting.

Social Support & Resisting Obedience:

• Social support can also help people to resist obedience.

• The participant may not follow the disobedient person’s behaviour but the point is the other person’s disobedience

acts as a ‘model’ for the participant to copy that frees him to act from his own conscience.

AO3 - Social Support

• This idea is supported by a variation of Milgram’s study, where there were two other participants (who were

actually confederates) and disobeyed the experimenter.

• The presence of the other person caused the level of obedience to reduce from 65% to 10%.

• This shows that the social support provided from the other participants gave them the confidence to reject the

position of authority

• Gamson et al also gave support to the idea that larger groups provide a stronger social support system, which

makes resisting obedience/social influence much easier.

• These researchers found that when participants where placed in groups, 88% resisted the pressure to conform to

the same smear campaign which other confederates had developed.

• This also clearly demonstrates the significant influence of social support systems.

Locus of control

Locus of Control: Refers to a persons perception of personal control over their own behaviour. It is measured

along a dimension of high internal to high external.

• High internals perceive themselves as having a great deal of personal control over their behaviour and therefore
more likely to take personal responsibility for it.

• What happens to an individual is therefore seen as a product of his or her own ability and effort.

• Therefore having a high internal locus of control could be an explanation for why some individuals can behave

independently and resist pressures to conform or obey.

• This can be because high internals seek information that is useful to them so are less likely to rely on information

given by others.

• Additionally high internals are achievement minded and are more likely to become leaders so are better able to resist

coercion from others.

• In contrast, high externals see their behaviour as being caused by external influences or luck.

• They have a sense that things ‘just happen to them’ and are largely out of their control.

• People high w a high external locus of control tend to approach events with a more passive and fatalistic attitude

than internals, taking less personal responsibility for their actions and being less likely to display independent

behaviour and more likely to accept the influence of others.

AO3 - Locus of Control

Research support

This explanation is given credit by research evidence. Support for this idea comes from Oliner and Oliner (1988) who

interviewed two groups of non-Jewish people who had lived through the Holocaust. They compared people who had

protected and rescued Jews from the Nazis and people who had not. Oliner and Oliner found that the group that

rescued the Jews had scores demonstrating a high internal locus of control compared to the non-rescue group. Tf

suggesting that locus of control may be an important dispositional factor in an individual's ability to disobey orders or
not conform to social norms.

Contradictory research

However not all research supports the link between LOC and resistance. Twenge et al. (2004) analysed data from

American locus of control studies over a 40-year period (from 1960 to 2002). The data showed that, over this

time span, people have become more resistant to obedience but also more external. If resistance were linked to an

internal locus of control, we would expect people to have become more internal. This challenges the link between

internal LOC and increasing resistant behaviour. However, it is possible that the results are due to a changing society

where many things are out of personal control.

Minority Influence

Minority Influence: Refers to Situations where one person or small group of ppl influences the beliefs and

behaviour of other ppl. This is more likely to lead to Internalisation

Consistency:

• Over time, the consistency in the minority’s views increases the amount of interest from other people.

• This consistency might be agreement between people in the minority group (synchronic consistency – they’re all

saying the same thing), and/or consistency over time (diachronic consistency – they’ve been saying the same thing

for some time now e.g Montgomery bus boycott).

• Such consistency makes other people start to rethink their own views (‘Maybe they’ve got a point if they all think

this way’ or ‘Maybe they’ve got a point if they have kept saying it’).
Commitment:

• Sometimes minorities engage in quite extreme activities to draw attention to their views.

• It is important that these extreme activities are at some risk to the minority because this demonstrates

commitment to the cause.

• Majority group members then pay even more attention (‘Wow, he must really believe in what he’s saying so perhaps

I ought to consider his view’).

• This is called the augmentation principle e.g Rosa Parks

Flexibility:

• Relentless consistency could be counter productive if it is seen by the majority as unbending and unreasonable.

• Therefore minority influence is more effective if the minority show flexibility by accepting the possibility of

compromise so they’ll need to be prepared to adapt their point of view

• The key is to strike a balance between consistency and flexibility.

Moscovici’s study on Minority

Influence:
AO3 - Minority Influence

Moscovici - Research Support for consistency

Research support for flexibility

Nemeth and Brilmayer (1987) studied the role of flexibility in a simulated jury situation where group members

discussed the amount of compensation to be paid to someone involved in a ski-lift accident. When a confederate put

forward an alternative point of view and refused to change his position, this had no effect on other group members. A

confederate who compromised and therefore showed some degree of shift towards the majority did exert an influence

on the rest of the group. Tf, demonstrating the power of flexibility used by a minority when influencing a majority.

Minority influence in name only

Despite the evidence for higher quality decision-making, Nemeth (2010) claims it is still difficult to convince people of

the value of dissent. People accept the principle only on the surface, i.e. it appears democratic and tolerant. However,

they quickly become irritated by a dissenting view that persists and they also fear the lack of harmony within the

group by welcoming dissent. As a result, we attempt to belittle the dissenting view or try to contain it. People are

encouraged to ‘fit in’ and made to fear repercussions, including being marginalised by ridicule by being associated with

a ‘deviant’ point of view. Tf suggesting that the majority view persists and the opportunities for innovative thinking

associated with minority influence are lost.

1) Drawing attention to an issue - Minorities can bring about social change by drawing the majority’s

attention to an issue. If their views are different to those held by the majority, this creates a conflict that they are

motivated to reduce. The suffragettes used educational, political and militant tactics to draw attention to the fact

that women were denied the same voting rights as men.

2) Consistency – There were many marches and many people taking part. Even though they were a minority of

the American population, the civil rights activists displayed consistency of message and intent.

3) Deeper processing of the issue – This attention meant that many people who had simply accepted the

status quo began to think about the unjustness of it.

4) The augmentation principle – If a minority appears willing to suffer for their views, they are seen as

more committed and so taken more seriously by others. Because the suffragettes were willing to risk imprisonment or

even death from hunger strike, their influence became more powerful (i.e. it was augmented).

5) The snowball effect – Minority influence initially has a relatively small effect but this then spreads more

widely as more and more people consider the issues being promoted, until it reaches a ‘tipping point’, at which point it

leads to wide-scale social change. Universal suffrage (all adult citizens having the vote) was finally accepted by the
majority of people in the UK.

6) Social cryptomnesia (people have a memory that change has occurred but don’t remember how it

happened) – There is no doubt that social change did come about and the south is quite a different place now but

some people have no memory of the events above that led to that change.

AO3 - The Role of Social Influence Processes in Social Change

Social change through minority influence may be very gradual

History challenges the view that minorities such as the suffragettes can bring about social change quickly. Because

there is a strong tendency for human beings to conform to the majority position, groups are more likely to maintain

the status quo rather than engage in social change. The influence of a minority, therefore, is frequently more latent

than direct. Tf it creates the potential for change rather than actual social change

Being perceived as ‘deviant’ limits the influence of minorities

The potential for minorities to influence social change is often limited because they are seen as ‘deviant’ in the eyes of

the majority. Members of the majority may avoid aligning 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 of the majority’s attention would be the source of the message (i.e. the deviant minority) rather than the

message itself. In trying to bring about social change, minorities face the double challenge of avoiding being portrayed

as deviants and also making people directly embrace their position. Tf, social change may not be achieved by minority

Influence
Limitations of the social norms approach

While social norms interventions have shown positive results in a number of different settings (e.g. reducing drink-

driving, heavy drinking among students and teenage smoking), they also have their limitations. A particular problem is

that not all social norms interventions have led to social change. DeJong et al. (2009) tested the effectiveness of

social norms marketing campaigns to drive down alcohol use among students across 14 different college sites.

Surveys were conducted by post at the beginning of the study and three years after the campaign had finished.

Despite receiving normative information that corrected their misperceptions of subjective drinking norms, students in

the social norms condition did not show lower perceptions of student drinking levels, nor did they report lower self-

reported alcohol consumption as a result of the campaign. This suggests that the social norms approach is limited