J Types of conformity: internalisation, identification and compliance. J Explanations for conformity: informational social influence and normative social influence, and variables affecting conformity including group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by Asch. J Conformity to social roles as investigated by Zimbardo. J Dispositional explanation for obedience: the Authoritarian Personality. J Explanations of resistance to social influence, including social support and locus of control. J Minority influence including reference to consistency, commitment and flexibility. J The role of social influence processes in social change. COURSE COMPANION SOCIAL INFLUENECE
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J Types of conformity: internalisation, identification and compliance.
J Explanations for conformity: informational social influence and normative social influence, and variables affecting conformity including group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by Asch.
J Conformity to social roles as investigated by Zimbardo.
J Dispositional explanation for obedience: the Authoritarian Personality.
J Explanations of resistance to social influence, including social support and locus of control.
J Minority influence including reference to consistency, commitment and flexibility.
J The role of social influence processes in social change.
COURSE COMPANION
SOCIAl INflUENECE
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Types of conformity: internalisation, identification and compliance.
What You Need to Know
Types of conformity Conformity is type of social influence where a person changes
their attitude or behaviour in response to group pressure.
There are many different situations where people conform and
psychologists have categorised three main types of conformity,
including: compliance, identification and internalisation.
Compliance is the lowest level of conformity. Here a person
changes their public behaviour, the way they act, but not their
private beliefs. This is usually a short-term change and is often
the result of normative social influence. For example, you might
say that you like dub-step music because many other people in
your class like dub-step music and you wish to fit in, however
privately you dislike this style of music.
Identification is the middle level of conformity. Here a person
changes their public behaviour and their private beliefs, but only
while they are in the presence of the group. This is a usually a
short-term change and normally the result of normative social
influence. For example, a person may decide to become a
vegetarian because all of his new flat mates are vegetarian.
However, whenever he walks past a MacDonald’s he can’t resist
a Big Mac and when he is away from his flat mates he still eats
meat. Identification takes place we are surrounded by a particular
group; we change our private beliefs while in the presence of the
group and not permanently.
Internalisation is the deepest level of conformity. Here a person
changes their public behaviour and their private beliefs. This is
usually a long-term change and often the result of informational
social influence (ISI). For example, if an individual is influenced
by a group of Buddhists and converts to this faith, then their
new religious way of life will continue without the presence of the
group and they have internalised this belief.
Describe the three types of conformity, including:
J Compliance
J Identification
J Internalisation
Change in public behaviour
Change in private Belief?
Short-term/ long-term
Compliance Y N Short-term
Identification Y Y* Short-term
Internalisation Y Y Long-term
* (Only in the presence of the majority)
J NOTES
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Explanations for conformity: informational social influence and normative social influence, and variables affecting conformity including group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by Asch.
What You Need to Know
Explanations for conformity In addition to the three types of conformity (compliance,
identification and internalisation) there are also two explanations
of why people conform, including: normative social influence and
information social influence.
Normative social influence is when a person conforms to
be accepted, or belong to a group. Here a person conforms
because it is socially rewarding, or to avoid social punishment,
for example, being ridiculed for not ‘fitting in’. Normative social
influence is usually associated with compliance and identification.
With compliance, people change their public behaviour but not
their private beliefs; with identification people change their public
behaviour and their private beliefs, but only in the presence of the
group. Therefore, these types of social influence are short-term
examples, usually the result of a desire to be fit in.
Informational social influence is when a person conforms
to gain knowledge, or because they believe that someone else
is ‘right’. Informational social influence is usually associated
with internalisation, where a person changes both their public
behaviour and their private beliefs, on a long-term basis. This
semi-permanent change in behaviour and belief is the result of
a person adopting a new belief system, because they genuinely
believe that their new beliefs are ‘right’. For example, if a person
changes their political ideology from Conservative to Liberal, then
they have internalised these new beliefs on a semi-permanent
basis and believe that voting Liberal is ‘right’.
Exam Hint: It is important to ensure you understand the
distinction between types of conformity (compliance,
identification and internalisation) and the explanations for
conformity (normative and information social influence).
Jenness (1932) & Asch (1951)Everyday examples of conformity are fairly common. For example,
have you ever filled out a sponsorship form and seen that everyone
has donated £10 and you feel compelled to also donate £10, despite
the fact you originally wanted to donate £5. Or, have you ever been to
a summer fayre and tried to guess how many sweets are in the jar?
This surprising difficult task is ambiguous, as no one is ever certain.
You may inspect the jar and think that it contains around 100 sweets
and then you see that everyone else has written 500 or more; as
a result you change your answer to reflect those that were written
before you. These everyday examples of conformity have formed the
basis of psychological research in this area.
Males Females
Average estimate before 790 925
Average estimate after 695 878
Average change 256 382
Jenness (1932) conducted one of the earliest experiments
examining conformity. He used an ambiguous situation that involved
Outline two explanations for conformity, including:
J Informational social influence
J Normative social influence
Outline and evaluate Asch’s (1951) original research
examining conformity.
Outline and evaluate variations of Asch’s research
which examined how different variables affect
conformity, including:
J Group size
J Unanimity
J Task difficulty
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a glass bottle filled with 811 white beans. His sample consisted of
101 psychology students, who individually estimated how many
beans the glass bottle contained. Participants were then divide into
groups of three and asked to provide a group estimate through
discussion. Following the discussion, the participants were provided
with another opportunity individually estimate the number of beans,
to see if they changed their original answer.
Jenness found that nearly all participants changed their original
answer, when they were provided with another opportunity to
estimate the number of beans in the glass bottle. On average
male participants changed their answer by 256 beans and female
participants changed their answers by 382 beans. These results
demonstrate the power of conformity in an ambiguous situation
and are likely to be the result of informational social influence. The
participants in this experiment changed their answers because they
believed the group estimate was more likely to be right, than their
own individual estimate.
Asch (1951) conducted one of the most famous laboratory
experiments examining conformity. He wanted to examine the extent
to which social pressure from a majority, could affect a person to
conform.
Asch’s sample consisted of 50 male students from Swarthmore
College in America, who believed they were taking part in a vision
test. Asch used a line judgement task, where he placed on real naïve
participants in a room with seven confederates (actors), who had
agreed their answers in advance. The real participant was deceived
and was led to believe that the other seven people were also real
participants. The real participant always sat second to last.
In turn, each person had to say out loud which line (A, B or C) was
most like the target line in length. Unlike Jenness’ experiment, the
correct answer was always obvious. Each participant completed 18
trials and the confederates gave the same incorrect answer on 12
trials, called critical trials. Asch wanted to see if the real participant
would conform to the majority view, even when the answer was
clearly incorrect.
Asch measured the number of times each participant conformed
to the majority view. On average, the real participants conformed
to the incorrect answers on 32% of the critical trials. 74% of the
participants conformed on at least one critical trial and 26% of the
participants never conformed. Asch also used a control group, in
which one real participant completed the same experiment without
any confederates. He found that less than 1% of the participants
gave an incorrect answer.
Asch interviewed his participants after the experiment to find out
why they conformed. Most of the participants said that they knew
their answers were incorrect, but they went along with the group
in order to fit in, or because they thought they would be ridiculed.
This confirms that participants conformed due to normative social
influence and the desire to fit in.
Evaluation:J Asch used a biased sample of 50 male students from
Swarthmore College in America. Therefore, we cannot generalise
the results to other populations, for example female students,
and we are unable to conclude if female students would have
conformed in a similar way to male students. As a result Asch’s
sample lacks population validity and further research is required
to determine whether males and females conform differently.
J Furthermore, it could be argued that Asch’s experiment has low
levels of ecological validity. Asch’s test of conformity, a line
judgement task, is an artificial task, which does not reflect
conformity in everyday life. Consequently, we are unable to
generalise the results of Asch to other real life situations, such
as why people may start smoking or drinking around friends,
and therefore these results are limited in their application to
everyday life.
J Finally, Asch’s research is ethically questionable. He broke several
ethical guidelines, including: deception and protection from
harm. Asch deliberately deceived his participants, saying that
they were taking part in a vision test and not an experiment
on conformity. Although it is seen as unethical to deceive
participants, Asch’s experiment required deception in order to
achieve valid results. If the participants were aware of the true
aim they would have displayed demand characteristics and acted
differently. In addition, Asch’s participants were not protected
from psychological harm and many of the participants reporting
Target line A B C
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feeling stressed when they disagreed with the majority. However,
Asch interviewed all of his participants following the experiment to
overcome this issue.
Variations of Asch (1951)Following Asch’s original research, numerous variations of his line
judgement task were carried out. These variations include: group
size, unanimity and task difficulty.
Group Size: Asch carried out many variations to determine how the
size of the majority, affects the rate of conformity. These variations
ranged from 1 confederate to 15 confederates, and the level of
conformity varied dramatically. When there was one confederate,
the real participants conformed on just 3% of the critical trials. When
the group size increased to two confederates, the real participants
conformed on 12.8% of the critical trials. Interestingly, when there
were three confederates, the real participants conformed on 32% of
the critical trials, the same percentage as Asch’s original experiment,
in which there were seven confederates. This demonstrates that
conformity reaches it’s highest level with just three confederates.
Asch continued investigating group size and in one condition he used
15 confederates. In this experiment the rate of conformity slightly
dropped, although Asch didn’t report the percentage. It is possible
that the rate of conformity dropped because the real participants
became suspicious of the experiment and not because the pressure
to conform is less, in larger groups.
Unanimity: In Asch’s original experiment, the confederates all gave
the same incorrect answer. In one variation of Asch’s experiment,
one of the confederates was instructed to give the correct answer
throughout. In this variation the rate of conformity dropped to
5%. This demonstrates that if the real participant has support for
their belief, then they are likely more likely to resist the pressure to
conform. Furthemore, in another variation, one of the confederates
gave a different incorrect answer to the majority. In this variation
conformity still dropped significantly, by this time to 9%. This shows
that if you break the group’s unanimous position, then conformity
is reduced, even if the answer provided by the supporter, is still
incorrect.
Task Difficulty: In Asch’s original experiment, the correct answer
was always obvious. In one his variations he made the task
more difficult, by making the difference between the line lengths
significantly smaller. In this variation Asch found the rate of conformity
increased, although he didn’t report the percentage. This is likely to
be the result of informational social influence, as individuals look to
another for guidance when completing the task, similar to the results
found in Jenness’ experiment.
Variation Conformity % (Critical Trials)
Group Size: 1 Confederate Lower (3%)
Group Size: 2 Confederates Lower (12.8%)
Group Size: 3 Confederates Remained the same (32%)
Group Size: 15 Confederates Lower (?*%)
Unanimity – Where one of the confederates gave the correct answer throughout. Lower (5%)
Unanimity – Where one of the confederates gave a different incorrect answer to the majority.
Lower (9%)
Task Difficulty – Where the task was made significantly more difficult, by making the different between the line lengths significantly smaller.
Higher (?*%)
* *The actual percentages were not published by Asch
J NOTES
Explanations for obedience: agentic state and legitimacy of authority, and situational variables affecting obedience including proximity, location and uniform, as investigated by Milgram.
What You Need to Know
Part 1 – Milgram (1963) Milgram (1963) conducted one of the most famous and influential
psychological investigations of obedience. He wanted to find out
if ordinary American citizens would obey an unjust order from an
authority figure and inflict pain on another person because they
were instructed to.
Milgram’s sample consisted of 40 male participants from a
range of occupations and backgrounds. The participants were
all volunteers who had responded to an advert in a local paper,
which offered $4.50 to take part in an experiment on ‘punishment
and learning’.
The 40 participants were all invited to a laboratory at Yale
University and upon arrival they met with the experimenter and
another participant, Mr Wallace, who were both confederates.
The experimenter explained that one person would be randomly
assigned the role of teacher and the other, a learner. However,
the real participant was always assigned the role of teacher. The
experimenter explained that the teacher, the real participant,
would read the learner a series of word pairs and then test their
recall. The learner, who was positioned in an adjacent room,
would indicate his choice using a system of lights. The teacher
was instructed to administer an electric shock ever time the
learner made a mistake and to increase the voltage after each
mistake.
The teacher watched the learner being strapped to the electric
chair and was given a sample electric shock to convince them
that the procedure was real. The learner wasn’t actually strapped
to the chair and gave predetermined answers to the test. As
the electric shocks increased the learner’s screams, which were
recorded, became louder and more dramatic. At 180 volts the
learner complained of a weak heart. At 300 volts he banged on
the wall and demanded to leave and at 315 volts he became
silent, to give the illusions that was unconscious, or even dead.
The experiment continued until the teacher refused to continue,
or 450 volts was reached. If the teacher tried to stop the
experiment, the experimenter would respond with a series of
prods, for example: ‘The experiment requires that you continue.’
Following the experiment the participants were debriefed.
Milgram found that all of the real participants went to at least 300
volts and 65% continued until the full 450 volts. He concluded
that under the right circumstances ordinary people will obey
unjust orders.
EvaluationJ Milgram’s study has been heavily criticised for breaking
numerous ethical guidelines, including: deception, right to
withdraw and protection from harm. Milgram deceived his
participants as he said the experiment was on ‘punishment
and learning’, when in fact he was measuring obedience,
and he pretended the learner was receiving electric shocks.
In addition, it was very difficult for participants with withdraw
from the experiment, as the experimenter prompted the
participants to continue. Finally, many of the participants
reported feeling exceptionally stressed and anxious while
J Outline and evaluate Milgram’s (1963) original research examining obedience.J Outline variations of Milgram which examine different variables affecting obedience and explain how these variations support the following factors:a. Agentic stateb. Legitimate authorityc. Proximityd. Locatione. Uniform
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taking part in the experiment and therefore they were not
protect from psychological harm. This is an issue, as Milgram
didn’t respect his participants, some of whom felt very guilt
following the experiment, knowing that they could have
harmed another person. However, it must be noted that it was
essential for Milgram to deceive his participants and remove
their right to withdraw to test obedience and produce valid
results. Furthermore, he did debrief his participants following
the experiment and 83.7% of participants said that they were
happy to have taken part in the experiment and contribute to
scientific research.
J Milgram’s study has been criticised for lacking ecological
validity. Milgram tested obedience in a laboratory, which is
very different to real-life situations of obedience, where people
are often asked to follow more subtle instructions, rather
than administering electric shocks. As a result we are unable
to generalise his findings to real life situations of obedience
and cannot conclude that people would obey less severe
instructions in the same way.
J Finally, Milgram’s research lacked population validity.
Milgram used a bias sample of 40 male volunteers, which
means we are unable to generalise the results to other
populations, in particular females, and cannot conclude if
female participants would respond in a similar way.
Part 2 – Variations of Milgram (1963)Following Milgram’s original research, numerous variations were
carried out to examine how different variables affect obedience.
Agentic State: An agentic state is when an individual carries
out the orders of an authority figure and acts as their agent, with
little personal responsibility. In Milgram’s original experiment, the
participants were told that the experimenter had full responsibility
and therefore they could act as an agent, carrying out the
experimenter’s orders. If the participants were told that they were
responsible, it is possible that Milgram would have obtained very
different results.
Milgram argued that people operate in one of two ways when
faced with social situations. Individuals can act autonomously
and choose their behaviour, or they can enter an agentic state,
where they carry out orders of an authority figure and do not
feel responsible for their actions. When a person changes from
autonomous state to an agentic state, they have undergone an
agentic shift.
In Milgram’s original experiment 65% of participants administered
the full 450 volts and were arguably in an agentic state.
However, in one variation of Milgram’s experiment and additional
confederate administered the electric shocks on behalf of
the teacher. In this variation the percentage of participants
who administered the full 450 volts rose dramatically, from
65% to 92.5%. This variation highlights the power of shifting
responsibility (agentic shift), as these participants were able
to shift their responsibility onto the person administering the
electric shocks and continue obeying orders because they
felt less responsible. Therefore, the ability to enter an agentic
state increases the level of obedience, as the level of personal
responsibility decreases.
Proximity: In Milgram’s original research the teacher and the
learner were in separate rooms. In order to test the power of
proximity, Milgram conducted a variation where the teacher
and learner where seated in the same room. In this variation the
percentage of participants who administered the full 450 volts
dropped from 65% to 40%. Here obedience levels fell, as the
teacher was able to experience the learner’s pain more directly.
In another variation, the teacher had to force the learner’s hand
directly onto the shock plate. In this more extreme variation, the
percentage dropped even further, to 30%. In these two variations,
the closer the proximity of the teacher and learner, the lower the
level of obedience.
The proximity of the authority figure also affects the level of
obedience. In one variation, after the experimenter had given the
initial instructions they left the room. All subsequent instructions
were provided over the phone. In this variation participants
were more likely to defy the experimenter and only 21% of the
participants administers the full 450 volts.
location: Milgram’s conducted his original research in a
laboratory of Yale University. In order to test the power of
the location, Milgram conducted a variation in a run down
building in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The experiment was no
longer associated with Yale University and was carried out by
the Research Association of Bridgeport. In this variation the
percentage of participants who administered the full 450 volts
dropped from 65% to 47.5%. This highlights the impact of
location on obedience, with less credible locations resulting in a
reduction in the level of obedience.
Uniform: In most of Milgram’s variations the experimenter
wore a lab coat, indicating his status as a University Professor.
Milgram examined the power of uniform in a variation where
the experimenter was called away and replaced by another
‘participant’ in ordinary clothes, who was in fact another
confederate. In this variation, the man in ordinary clothes
came up with the idea of increasing the voltage every time the
leaner made a mistake. The percentage of participants who
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administered the full 450 volts when being instructed by an
ordinary man, dropped from 65% to 20%, demonstrating the
dramatic power of uniform.
Bickman (1974) also investigated the power of uniform in a
field experiment conducted in New York. Bickman used three
male actors: one dressed as a milkman; one dressed as a security
guard; and one dressed in ordinary clothes. The actors asked
members of the public to following one of three instructions: pick
up a bag; give someone money for a parking metre; and stand on
the other side of a bus stop sign which said ‘no standing’.
Uniform
Situation
Paper bag Dime Bus stop
N % N % N %
Civilian 14 36 24 33 15 20
Milkman 14 36 24 33 15 20
Guard 14 36 24 33 15 20
On average the guard was obeyed on 76% of occasions, the
milkman on 47% and the pedestrian on 30%. These results all
suggest that people are more likely to obey, when instructed by
someone wearing a uniform. This is because the uniform infers a