Social influence

Notes · PsychologyUK · A-Levels

Social influence is the process by which the presence, opinions or actions of others change an individual's behaviour, beliefs or feelings. This chapter examines conformity and obedience, the classic studies of Asch, Zimbardo and Milgram, why some people resist pressure, and how a committed minority can ultimately change the view of the majority and drive social change.

6 sections~23 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 3 · Advanced 2

T·0111 / 17

Exam profile

AO1 · Describe the types and explanations of conformity and obedience and outline the procedures and findings of Asch, Zimbardo and MilgramAO2 · Apply the concepts of conformity, obedience, resistance and minority influence to novel social scenariosAO3 · Evaluate the studies and explanations, including methodological rigour, ethics, individual and cultural differences

Operators:describeoutlineexplainapplyevaluatediscuss

basic level

AS-Level covers the types and explanations of conformity and obedience, Asch's and Milgram's research, resistance to social influence and minority influence.

higher level

The full A-Level adds the dispositional (Authoritarian Personality) account, the detail of social-change processes, and a more sustained evaluation of the ethics and validity of the classic studies.

Depth

Text

Contents · 6 sections

Social influence

Conformity: types, explanations and Asch's research#

FoundationAQA 7182 3.1.1DfE GCE Psychology - social influence

Conformity and majority size in Asch's study

Fig. 1Conformity climbs sharply up to a majority of three, then plateaus - adding more confederates barely increases it (illustrative values based on Asch's variations).

Conformity is a change in a person's behaviour or opinion as a result of real or imagined pressure from a group; it is often called majority influence because the pressure comes from the larger group. Kelman (1958) distinguished three types that differ in how deep and how lasting the change is. Compliance is the shallowest: the person goes along with the group publicly to gain approval or avoid disapproval, but privately their view is unchanged, so the behaviour stops when the group is no longer watching. Identification is intermediate: the person adopts the group's behaviour because they value membership of the group and want to be like them, so the change may be temporary and tied to that group. Internalisation is the deepest: the person genuinely accepts the group's view as their own, so the change is private as well as public and persists even when the group is absent.

Two explanations account for why people conform, and they map onto the types. Informational social influence (ISI) is a cognitive process: we conform because we want to be right, and when a situation is ambiguous, novel or a matter of expertise we look to others as a source of information about the correct response. ISI tends to produce internalisation because we genuinely believe the information. Normative social influence (NSI) is an emotional process: we conform because we want to be liked and accepted and to avoid rejection, following the group's norms. NSI tends to produce compliance because we change our public behaviour without changing our private belief. The two often operate together, which is why it can be hard to separate them in a real situation.

Asch (1951) provided the classic demonstration of NSI. In his procedure a naive participant sat with a group of between six and eight confederates and judged which of three comparison lines matched a standard line - a task with an obvious, unambiguous answer. On twelve of eighteen 'critical' trials the confederates unanimously gave the same wrong answer. Asch found that participants conformed to the wrong answer on about 37% of the critical trials, and about 75% of participants conformed at least once, even though when tested alone people were correct over 99% of the time. Afterwards most conforming participants said they knew the answer was wrong but had gone along with the group to avoid ridicule - direct evidence of NSI and compliance.

Asch then systematically varied the situation to identify the variables affecting conformity. Group size: conformity rose sharply as the majority grew from one to three confederates (reaching roughly a third) but then levelled off, so a majority of three is nearly as powerful as a much larger one. Unanimity: when one confederate broke ranks and gave the correct answer, conformity dropped to about a quarter of its earlier level - a dissenter, even a wrong one, gives the participant social support and breaks the group's spell. Task difficulty: when the lines were made more similar so the task was harder and more ambiguous, conformity increased, because the greater uncertainty brings ISI into play. These variables are examined in their own right and are strong evidence that conformity is situational.

\text{conformity rate} = \frac{\text{conforming responses}}{\text{total critical trials}} \times 100

Percentage conformity

The dependent variable in Asch-type studies is usually expressed as the percentage of critical trials on which the participant gave the group's wrong answer.

Worked example

Calculating and interpreting a conformity rate

In a replication a participant faced 18 critical trials and conformed to the majority's wrong answer on 6 of them. Calculate the conformity rate and explain what it suggests about the influence operating.

Apply the formula
Conformity rate = conforming responses / total critical trials x 100.
$\frac{6}{18} \times 100 = 33.3\%$
Compare with the baseline
Alone, accuracy on this task is over 99%, so a 33.3% error rate in the group is almost entirely group-induced.
Interpret
As the task is unambiguous, the participant probably knew the correct answer, so the conformity most likely reflects normative social influence (a desire to avoid standing out) producing compliance.

Result: A conformity rate of 33.3%, consistent with NSI-driven compliance on an easy, unambiguous task.

Typical mistakes

Muddling NSI and ISI - remember 'ISI = want to be right (information); NSI = want to be liked (norms)'.
Claiming conformity keeps rising with group size; Asch showed it plateaus after a majority of about three.

Active revision

A student privately disagrees with her friends about a band but praises it out loud so they will not think she is odd. Identify the type of conformity and the explanation, and justify your choice.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for psychology (Department for Education) · AQA A-level Psychology 7182 specification (AQA)

Conformity to social roles: the Stanford prison experiment#

StandardAQA 7182 3.1.1DfE GCE Psychology - conformity to social roles

Disposition versus situation

Fig. 2The core question of the SPE: did brutality come from the people (disposition) or the roles (situation)?

A social role is the set of behaviours expected of someone occupying a particular position, and conformity to social roles is the tendency to take on those expected behaviours even when they conflict with our usual character. Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment (1971/1973) set out to test whether the brutality reported in prisons is due to the sadistic dispositions of the people involved or to the situation itself - the roles of guard and prisoner.

The procedure created a realistic mock prison in the basement of Stanford University. Twenty-four male students, screened as emotionally stable, were randomly allocated to the role of guard or prisoner. Prisoners were arrested at home, stripped, deloused, given smocks and numbers, and referred to only by number; guards were given uniforms, dark glasses, clubs and handcuffs and told they had complete power over the prisoners. Zimbardo himself took the role of prison superintendent. The realism and the uniforms were designed to encourage rapid identification with the roles.

The findings were dramatic. Within days the guards grew increasingly cruel and enthusiastic in their role, using the prisoners' routines to harass and humiliate them, while the prisoners became passive, anxious and depressed; some had to be released early after emotional breakdowns, and one went on hunger strike. The study, planned to run for two weeks, was stopped after only six days. Zimbardo concluded that the participants had conformed strongly and quickly to their social roles, so the situation, not disposition, drove the behaviour - a demonstration of how ordinary people can behave in extreme ways when a role and its uniform grant them power or strip it away.

Evaluation is central to any exam answer. In its favour, the random allocation to roles strengthens the claim that the situation (not the individuals' personalities) caused the behaviour, and the control over the environment adds internal validity. Against it, the study has been criticised for demand characteristics - participants may have acted out stereotypes of how guards and prisoners behave (only about a third of guards were consistently brutal, suggesting the roles did not determine behaviour as tightly as claimed) - and for serious ethical problems, including psychological harm and Zimbardo's conflict of interest as both researcher and superintendent, which compromised his duty to protect participants.

Worked example

Building a point-evidence-explain evaluation

Write one fully developed AO3 evaluation point on the ethics of the Stanford prison experiment.

Point
A limitation of the SPE is that it raises serious ethical concerns about the protection of participants from psychological harm.
Evidence
Several prisoners experienced extreme distress, with breakdowns and a hunger strike, and the study was ended early; Zimbardo's dual role as superintendent meant he was slow to intervene.
Explain
Because the participants suffered avoidable harm that a researcher has a duty to prevent, the study breaches the ethical requirement to protect participants, which limits its acceptability today and means such a design could not be repeated without major safeguards.

Result: A complete PEE evaluation paragraph that names the issue, cites specific evidence and explains why it matters.

Typical mistakes

Retelling the story without linking it to the concept of conformity to social roles.
Treating the SPE as showing that all guards were cruel - only a minority were consistently so, which is itself an evaluation point.

Active revision

Outline one strength and one weakness of using a mock prison to study conformity to social roles.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for psychology (Department for Education) · AQA A-level Psychology 7182 specification (AQA)

Obedience: Milgram and the situational variables#

StandardAQA 7182 3.1.1DfE GCE Psychology - obedience

Obedience across Milgram's variations

Fig. 3Obedience falls as the authority's legitimacy is undermined by proximity, a less prestigious location or the loss of a uniform (standard textbook figures from Milgram's variations).

Obedience is a form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order from a figure with perceived authority. It differs from conformity: obedience involves an explicit instruction from an authority figure and a difference in status, whereas conformity involves the implicit pressure of an equal-status group. Milgram (1963) designed his study to understand how ordinary people could have participated in the atrocities of the Holocaust.

In the procedure, forty American men were told they were taking part in a study of memory and learning. The real participant was always assigned the role of 'teacher' and instructed by an experimenter (an authority figure in a lab coat) to give an apparent electric shock to a 'learner' (a confederate) each time he made a mistake, increasing the voltage by 15 volts each time up to a labelled 450 volts. The learner was not really shocked but gave scripted responses - protests, screams, and eventually silence. When the teacher hesitated, the experimenter used standard verbal 'prods' such as 'the experiment requires that you continue'.

The findings shocked psychologists: every participant continued to at least 300 volts, and 65% continued to the maximum 450 volts, despite showing extreme signs of tension such as sweating, trembling and nervous laughter. Milgram concluded that ordinary people will obey orders to harm another person if the order comes from a legitimate authority, and that obedience is largely a product of the situation rather than of evil dispositions. This directly challenges the 'Germans are different' dispositional hypothesis.

Milgram then ran variations to isolate the situational variables that raise or lower obedience. Proximity: when the teacher and learner were in the same room obedience fell to 40%, and when the teacher had to force the learner's hand onto a shock plate it fell to 30%; when the experimenter gave orders by telephone it fell to about 20.5%. Location: moving the study from prestigious Yale University to a run-down office reduced obedience to about 47.5%, because the setting lends the authority legitimacy. Uniform: when the experimenter was replaced by an ordinary member of the public in everyday clothes, obedience dropped to about 20%. Each variation shows how features of the situation change the perceived legitimacy of the authority and thus the level of obedience.

Worked example

Applying the situational variables to a scenario

A manager in a smart head office, wearing a suit, tells an employee face-to-face to mislead a customer, and the employee complies. Using Milgram's variables, explain why obedience is likely here.

Legitimacy of location
The prestigious office setting lends the manager legitimacy, as Yale did in the baseline (65%), raising the likelihood of obedience compared with a run-down setting.
Uniform
The suit acts as a symbol of authority; Milgram showed obedience fell to about 20% when the authority wore ordinary clothes, so the visible status here supports obedience.
Proximity
The order is given face-to-face, and Milgram found high obedience with a close, present authority, so the direct instruction increases compliance.

Result: The combination of a legitimate location, a status-signalling uniform and a proximate authority makes obedience highly likely.

Typical mistakes

Saying participants were 'happy' to obey - they showed extreme distress, which is an important qualification.
Confusing the variables - be exact about which condition produced which obedience rate.

Active revision

Using two of Milgram's variations, explain how situational factors affect obedience.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for psychology (Department for Education) · AQA A-level Psychology 7182 specification (AQA)

Explanations for obedience: agentic state, legitimacy and the Authoritarian Personality#

AdvancedAQA 7182 3.1.1DfE GCE Psychology - explanations for obedience

The agentic-state explanation

Fig. 4Perceiving a legitimate authority triggers the agentic shift; responsibility is displaced, moral strain is managed and the order is obeyed.

Two situational explanations, both from Milgram, account for why the situation produces obedience. The agentic state is a mental state in which a person sees themselves as the 'agent' carrying out another person's wishes rather than as acting on their own behalf, and so does not feel personally responsible for their actions. The opposite is the autonomous state, in which a person acts according to their own principles and feels responsible. The agentic shift is the move from autonomous to agentic, which Milgram argued happens when we perceive someone else as a legitimate authority. In the agentic state people experience moral strain - anxiety at doing something they believe is wrong - but manage it by displacing responsibility onto the authority.

The legitimacy of authority explanation says we are socialised from childhood to accept that certain people - police, teachers, parents, experimenters - have authority over us because society could not function otherwise, and we hand them the power to punish. This authority is signalled by visible cues such as uniforms and settings (which is why the variations altered obedience). A dangerous consequence is that some authority figures use their legitimate position to order destructive acts; because we have learned to obey legitimate authority, we may follow even harmful orders. This explanation accounts neatly for Milgram's location and uniform variations.

The dispositional explanation, by contrast, locates obedience in the personality. Adorno et al. (1950) proposed the Authoritarian Personality: a cluster of traits - rigid thinking, hostility to those of lower status, submissiveness to authority and conventional values - that predisposes a person to obey. They argued it develops from a harsh, disciplinarian upbringing in which the child cannot express hostility towards strict parents and so displaces it onto weaker others (scapegoating). Adorno measured it with the F-scale (the 'potential for fascism' scale) and found that people scoring high on authoritarianism showed greater respect for those of higher status.

The explanations can be compared and evaluated against each other. Milgram's own evidence supports the situational accounts: the variations show that changing the situation changes obedience, which a fixed personality cannot easily explain. Support for the dispositional account comes from later work showing that Milgram's fully obedient participants scored higher on authoritarianism. However, the dispositional explanation cannot explain why whole populations obeyed (they cannot all share one personality), the F-scale is criticised for methodological flaws (acquiescence bias), and the correlation between authoritarianism and obedience does not prove that authoritarianism causes obedience. Most psychologists therefore treat obedience as an interaction of situation and disposition.

Worked example

Choosing between explanations for data

A study finds that obedience varies widely across different experimental settings but that, within any one setting, the most obedient participants score highest on the F-scale. What does this pattern suggest about the explanations of obedience?

Interpret the between-setting variation
That obedience changes with the setting supports the situational explanations (legitimacy of authority / agentic state): if a fixed personality alone caused obedience, the setting should not matter.
Interpret the within-setting correlation
That the most obedient people score highest on authoritarianism supports the dispositional explanation as an additional influence.
Draw an interactionist conclusion
The data fit neither explanation alone; obedience is best seen as an interaction - the situation sets the general level and disposition explains individual differences within it.

Result: An interactionist account: situation drives the overall level of obedience, disposition explains who obeys most within a setting.

Typical mistakes

Treating the agentic state and legitimacy of authority as the same thing - legitimacy is the cause of the agentic shift.
Presenting the F-scale correlation as proof that an authoritarian personality causes obedience (correlation is not causation).

Active revision

Explain the difference between a situational and a dispositional explanation of obedience, using the agentic state and the Authoritarian Personality as examples.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for psychology (Department for Education) · AQA A-level Psychology 7182 specification (AQA)

Resistance to social influence: social support and locus of control#

StandardAQA 7182 3.1.1DfE GCE Psychology - resistance to social influence

Locus of control as a continuum

Fig. 5Locus of control is a continuum; internals (right) tend to resist social pressure more than externals (left).

Resistance to social influence is the ability to withstand pressure to conform or to obey, and the specification identifies two explanations. The first is social support. The presence of another person who resists the pressure - a dissenter or disobedient model - makes it far easier for an individual to resist too, because it breaks the unanimity of the majority and provides a model for independent behaviour. This is why conformity in Asch's study collapsed when a single confederate gave the correct answer, and why obedience in Milgram's variation with two disobedient confederates fell to about 10%.

Importantly, the resistance provided by social support does not depend on the ally being correct or making the same choice. In Asch's variations, a confederate who gave a different wrong answer still reduced conformity, because the point is that the ally shows that defying the majority is possible. The support also frees the individual from the fear of ridicule (NSI) or removes the sense that everyone else must be right (ISI). However, the effect can wear off: if the supporter later conforms, the naive participant tends to conform again, showing that the resistance is tied to the continued presence of the ally.

The second explanation is locus of control (Rotter, 1966), a personality dimension describing how much people believe they control events in their lives. People with an internal locus of control believe that what happens to them is largely the result of their own actions, whereas people with an external locus of control believe their lives are controlled by luck, fate or powerful others. Locus of control lies on a continuum, and most people fall somewhere between the two poles.

Internals are thought to be better able to resist social pressure for several reasons: because they take responsibility for their own actions they rely less on the opinions of others, they tend to be more self-confident and achievement-oriented, and these traits make them more able to lead and to resist coercion. Research does show a modest link - people who resisted in obedience studies tend to have a more internal locus of control - but the relationship is weak, locus of control only predicts resistance in novel situations (not familiar ones where past experience dominates), and social support is generally a stronger predictor of resistance than personality.

Worked example

Applying resistance explanations

At a protest, one person disobeys police instructions to disperse after seeing a friend refuse to move. Explain this resistance using social support, and predict how her locus of control might matter.

Social support
The friend acts as a disobedient model who breaks the unanimity of compliance, making it psychologically easier for her to resist - mirroring the fall in obedience when Milgram introduced disobedient confederates.
Locus of control
If she has an internal locus of control she believes her choices are her own responsibility and is less swayed by authority, so she is more likely to resist even without support.
Combine
The strongest prediction of resistance is the presence of the ally; an internal locus of control would reinforce it, but its effect is smaller and matters most in unfamiliar situations.

Result: Social support is the immediate cause of the resistance; an internal locus of control is a supporting dispositional factor.

Typical mistakes

Assuming an ally must be correct to help resistance - a dissenter who is also wrong still breaks unanimity.
Overstating locus of control - the link with resistance is modest and does not apply to familiar situations.

Active revision

Two friends are pressured by a group to do something they think is wrong. Using social support and locus of control, explain why one resists and the other complies.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for psychology (Department for Education) · AQA A-level Psychology 7182 specification (AQA)

Minority influence and social change#

AdvancedAQA 7182 3.1.1DfE GCE Psychology - minority influence and social change

The process of social change through minority influence

Fig. 6A committed, consistent minority draws attention and triggers deeper processing; conversions snowball until the new view becomes the norm.

Minority influence is a form of social influence in which a small group or individual changes the beliefs and behaviours of the majority. Unlike majority influence, which tends to produce compliance (a public change only), minority influence works by making people reconsider the issue for themselves, so it typically produces internalisation (a genuine, private change). Moscovici's blue-green slide study (1969) showed that a consistent minority who called blue slides 'green' influenced the majority's judgements far more than an inconsistent minority did.

Three behavioural characteristics make a minority persuasive. Consistency - repeating the same message over time (diachronic) and agreeing among themselves (synchronic) - makes the majority take the view seriously and reassess it. Commitment - demonstrating dedication, sometimes through personal sacrifice or risk (the augmentation principle: greater risk makes the majority attend more) - shows the minority genuinely believes its cause. Flexibility - being prepared to be reasonable and to compromise rather than appearing rigid and dogmatic - stops the minority being dismissed. A successful minority balances a consistent core message with a flexible manner.

The mechanism of minority influence is deeper processing. Because a minority view is unexpected, it makes people stop and think about why the minority holds it, and this active thought (rather than passive going-along) is what leads to internalisation. Once a few members of the majority convert, a snowball effect can occur: the minority position spreads and gathers momentum until it becomes the new majority view. At that point people often forget where the idea came from - a phenomenon called social cryptomnesia - so the source of the change is lost even though the change endures.

Social change is the process by which whole societies adopt new beliefs and ways of behaving, and minority influence is one route to it. The stages, illustrated by campaigns such as the suffragettes and the US civil-rights movement, are: drawing attention to an issue, consistency of message, deeper processing by the majority, the augmentation principle (personal risk raising the stakes), the snowball effect and finally social cryptomnesia. Conformity research also feeds social change: once a behaviour becomes the perceived norm, normative social influence pushes others to adopt it (for example, telling people that most of their neighbours conserve energy). Evaluation notes that social change through minority influence is usually gradual, and that being seen as a 'deviant' minority can create a barrier that slows the process.

Worked example

Mapping a campaign onto the social-change process

An environmental group holds the same demands for years, accepts arrests to publicise its cause and gradually wins public support until recycling becomes normal. Identify the social-influence processes at each stage.

Consistency and attention
Holding the same demands over years is consistency, which draws attention and makes the majority reassess the issue.
Commitment and augmentation
Accepting arrest is commitment; the personal risk triggers the augmentation principle, making the public take the minority more seriously.
Deeper processing to snowball
As people think more deeply, some convert; the change snowballs until recycling becomes the norm, after which social cryptomnesia may mean people forget the campaign's role.

Result: The campaign illustrates the full sequence: consistency and attention, commitment and augmentation, deeper processing, snowball and social cryptomnesia.

Typical mistakes

Confusing consistency and commitment - consistency is repeating/agreeing on the message; commitment is showing dedication, often through risk.
Forgetting that minority influence produces internalisation via deeper processing, not mere compliance.

Active revision

Discuss how a consistent minority can bring about social change, referring to at least one real example.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for psychology (Department for Education) · AQA A-level Psychology 7182 specification (AQA)

References & sources

Sources

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for psychology

AQA

AQA A-level Psychology 7182 specification

Social influence

6 sections~23 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 3 · Advanced 2

Key points

Calculating and interpreting a conformity rate

Key points

Building a point-evidence-explain evaluation

Key points

Applying the situational variables to a scenario

Key points

Choosing between explanations for data

Key points

Applying resistance explanations

Key points

Mapping a campaign onto the social-change process

Sources

Social influence

Key points

Calculating and interpreting a conformity rate

Key points

Building a point-evidence-explain evaluation

Key points

Applying the situational variables to a scenario

Key points

Choosing between explanations for data

Key points

Applying resistance explanations

Key points

Mapping a campaign onto the social-change process

Sources