1) Kelman identified 3 types of conformity: compliance, internalization, and identification. Compliance involves public agreement but private disagreement. Internalization involves both public and private agreement after accepting the views. Identification involves agreement due to feeling membership with the group. 2) Asch's line experiment found that about 37% of participants conformed to the unanimous wrong judgments of confederates, showing the power of majority influence. However, conformity decreased with smaller majorities or when the task was easier. 3) Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment showed how readily people will conform to and embrace social roles, with guards quickly becoming abusive to prisoners though this was an uncontrolled study.

1. C O N F O R M I T Y T O M A J O R I T Y
I N F L U E N C E
Conformity

2. Conformity to a majority influence
Kelman
 Compliance – When a person will publically agree but privately
disagree, e.g. A person might laugh at a joke that others are
laughing at but privately does not find it funny
 Internalisation – A person conforms publically and privately
because they have internalised the views of the group, e.g. A
person may turn vegetarian after living with a group of them at
uni
 Identification – Person conforms publically and privately
because they have identified with the group and feel a sense of
membership
Asch
 123 male students agreed to do a visual perception task
 One main line was drawn which they had to match with an option
of 3 other lines
 In this experiment, only 1 participant in each group of 6 was real,
they others were all confederates
 Overall there was a 37% conformity
 25% of participants did not conform
 5% conformed on every line

3. Conformity to a majority influence
Evaluating Asch
 Lack of ecological validity – artificial situation
 Highly controlled – cause and effect
 Lack of informed consent
 Only used males - androcentric
 Participants were given the right to withdraw
 Deception – They didn’t know that the others were confederates
Smith and bond – culture and conformity
 Meta-analysis of 133 studies in 17 countries
 Collectivist countries (UK, USA) tended to show higher levels of
conformity than individualist countries (Japan)
 The impact of culture variables was higher than any other
variable (e.g. Gender)
Variations of Asch
 Difficulty of task – The lengths of the lines was made much
smaller so that it was harder to spot the correct answer
 Under this condition, conformity increased.
 Size of the majority – When the confederates decreased to just
1 or 2 participants were less likely to conform.
 When confederates were increased to 3 conformity rose to 30%
 Any more confederates above 3 did not impact levels of majority
at all

4. C O N F O R M I T Y I N T O S O C I A L
R O L E S
Conformity

5. Conformity into social roles
Zimbardo
 Used male volunteers who were paid $15 a day to take part in a 2
week stimulation of prison life
 Participants were randomly allocated into roles of prisoners or
guards
 9 ‘prisoners’ were arrested in the night, put in prison and given
smocks to wear
 There were 3 guards of each shift who wore khaki uniforms and
dark glasses
 Guards harassed and humiliated prisoners but physical
aggression was not permitted
 The study had to be discontinued after 6 days as prisoners
became too depressed and anxious
 This shows that people will readily conform into social roles if
expected to do so
Evaluation
 Zimbardo acted as a guard as well as the researcher so could have
influenced the behaviour of the guards
 Demand characterstics

6. C O N F O R M I T Y T O M I N O R I T Y
I N F L U E N C E
Conformity

7. Conformity to a minority influence
Conditions necessary for social change by minority:
 Drawing attention to the issue – If we are exposed to the
views of minority then it draws attention to it. If their view is
different to the norm it causes conflict which we want to reduce
so go along with.
 The role of conflict – As a result of conflict we actually look
into the minorities idea and think deeply about it. If we are
deeply looking into an issue then we consider changing our
opinions.
 Consistency – Minorities are more effective if they are more
consistent as they are taken more seriously
 The augmentation principle – If there is a risk of violence or
death involved in putting forward an argument then people will
listen and take the situation more seriously.

8. Conformity to a minority influence
Moscovici
 32 groups of women participants were put into groups of 6
 In these groups of 6, 2 were confederates
 They were shown slides of a PowerPoint of which were all varied
shades of blue
 There were two conditions;
 Consistent – Confederates said that all the slides were green
 Inconstant – Confederates said that the slides were green 24 times and
blue 12 times
 Participants in the inconsistent condition called the slides green
in 8.4% of trails
 32% of participants in the inconsistent condition said at least one
slide was green
 Minorities can still influence the majority in certain
circumstances
 Lack of ecological validity
 Deception
 Highly controlled – clear established cause and effect
 Lack of informed constent

9. Conformity to a minority influence
Moscovici – conversion theory
 If an individual is exposed to an argument that is contradictory to
the majority it causes conflict
 People do not like to experience conflict therefore look into this
minority idea and are motivated to reduce this conflict and to do
this they have to go along with the minority influence
 With majority influence, individuals are less likely to closely
analyse the argument and just simply adjust their attitudes
Evaluation
 Mackie completely disagrees with Moscovici by saying that its
the majority which promotes greater message processing. People
genuinely believe that their views are the same as the majority.If
the majority share a different opinion to us we think deeply about
changing our opinion and don't worry about what the minority
are doing

10. Conformity to a minority influence
Fathers 4 justice
 O'Conner lead the fathers 4 justice protest
 They were campaigning for equal parenting rights
 They bought about attention by a super hero climbing on
Buckingham palace
 Sent 200 Santa clauses into a building to protest
Suffragettes
 Tried to gain equal rights for women
 Attempted using peaceful methods but this didn't work so turned
to violence
 One women threw themselves in front of the kings horse and got
killed
 They went on a hunger strike in prison and refused to eat because
they were in prison so they got let out
 This continued for 15 years

11. O B E D I E N C E T O A U T H O R I T Y
Obedience

12. Obedience to authority
Milgram
 40 male volunteers were each paid $4.50
 The real participant acted as the ‘teacher’ and the confederate
played the role of the ‘learner’
 The ‘teacher’ had to give an electric shock every time the ‘learner’
got an answer wrong
 The confederate voice was played on a tape recorder and no-one
was really given any electric shocks
 The electric shock scale varied from 15 volts to 450 volts
 All participants went to at least 300 volts
 65% went to the full 450 volts
 Most participants found the participants found the experiment
stressful and wanted to stop
 The study showed that most people will obey orders under an
authoritive figure even if it goes against the conscience

13. Obedience to authority
Evaluation
 Androcentric
 Got paid - volunteers
 Individual differences – personality
 Demand characteristics
 Lack of realism – lab
 Deception
 Lack of informed constant before the experiment
Variations
1 ) The learner was placed in the same room as the teacher (real
participant) – 40% gave the full 450 volts
2) The participant was given the choice of which shock to administer
– 2.5% gave the full 450 volts
3) Participants were all female – 65% gave the full 450 volts

14. Obedience to authority
Explanation of obedience
 Gradual commitment – As the participants had already given
lower-shocks it becomes harder to resist the experiment
requirements. Each shock is only 15 volts more than the previous
one so it doesn't appear to be as bad.
 Agentic shift - an individual may shift from ‘automous’ state
(responsible for themselves) to ‘Agentic’ state (agent for
someone else) blaming the authoritive figure for their actions
 Roles of buffers – Protection from guilt. The learners were in a
different room from the teachers so did not have to witness the
learner in pain
 Justifying obedience – the participants are lead to believe that
they are doing something for the greater good and for the need of
science so what harm can a little bit of pain really cause
Criticising the explanations
 Milgram ignored other plausible explanations
 Not a justified explanation for ‘just obeying orders’ this is not an
excuse for killing someone
 In Milgrams study, participants were told that they were not
causing harm on the learner whereas in the Holocaust they knew
they were shooting to kill

15. R E S I S T I N G T H E P R E S S U R E T O
C O N F O R M
Independent behaviour

16. Resisting the pressure to conform
Desire for individuation:
 Wanting to stand out from the crowd and not be like everyone else; having
a sense of uniqueness
 Snyder and Frankin - Led group 1 to believe that their attitudes were
different from the norm. Led group 2 to believe that their attitudes were
identical to the norm. Those who had their identity stolen resisted
conformity pressures due to wanting to be different
Desire to maintain control:
 Group pressure may be a threat to their freedom as they do not want to be
one of the crowd
 Burger – People with a desire for personal control resist conformity
pressures easier
Prior commitment:
 When someone announces publically to an opinion then you are less likely
to change your view as you do not want to appear indecisive or to ignorance
even if a better answer is found
 Asch – Participants under took an allusions test, after the test was done
and each participant had already given their individual answer, they were
asked to come up with a group estimate, after this group estimate
participants were offered to change their answer which the majority did.
Time to think and social support:
 Some feel that they must be mindful and engage in critical thinking when
faced with a situational demands in order to approach situations probably
 Asch – Conformity dropped to 8.7% when participants received social
support from an ally in the original Asch study with the lines

17. Resisting the pressure to obey
Disobedient role models
 Exposing people to the actions of a disobedient role model
encourages disobedience in those who agree with the motives of
the deviant person
 In a Milgram variation, when the confederate participants
refused to give the electric shock, 90% of the real participants
didn't either
Questioning authorities motives and status
 Some people chose to question what reasons an authoritive figure
has would make them have an increased motivation to defy
 In a variation of Milgrams research, when the study a run down
block of flats, the surroundings made it easier to question the
authority
Feeling and Empathy
 Honest feelings of care are superior to the feeling of obeying
 A variation of Milgrams study showed that some participants did
not want to continue to obey when they knew that the ‘Learner’
was in distress and knowing that they were causing harm went
against their beliefs

18. Locus of control
Internal External
Characteristics High level of
personal control over
their lives and
behaviour
Life is determined by
external/environmen
tal factors such as
luck
Relation to social
influence
Less likely to rely on
others, more
achievement
orientated, resist
pressure to change
More likely to be
influenced by others,
do not believe they
are in control of their
lives