psychology 1 merged

To investigate whether ordinary people would obey an authority figure when instructed to carry out actions that appeared to harm another person.

40 male volunteers aged 20–50 from the New Haven area of the USA. They responded to advertisements or direct mail and received \$4.50.

Self-selected volunteer sampling. Participants chose to take part after seeing an invitation.

The experiment took place at Yale University which gave the procedure an appearance of scientific authority.

Participants were told the study investigated the effect of punishment on learning and memory.

A rigged draw meant the real participant always became the teacher while Mr Wallace was a confederate pretending to be the learner.

A confederate in a technician's coat instructed the participant and used standardised verbal prompts when they hesitated.

Participant meets learner and experimenter → participant receives a sample 45 V shock → participant reads word pairs → learner gives scripted wrong answers → participant increases the apparent shock level → experimenter prompts them to continue → obedience is recorded.

The participant read word pairs and tested the learner. Each incorrect answer was followed by an apparent electric shock at the next level.

A fake generator with increasing voltage levels up to 450 V. The participant believed the learner was receiving shocks but the learner was not actually shocked.

The confederate followed a planned sequence of protests that became increasingly concerning and eventually stopped responding.

Describe the escalation from discomfort to strong protest and then silence. Exact voltage-by-voltage labels are unnecessary unless a question specifically asks for them.

The experimenter used a standardised sequence of verbal prods to encourage continuation. A participant who continued to refuse after the final prod was allowed to stop.

The participant was the teacher and a confederate was the learner. After each wrong answer the teacher administered an apparently stronger shock. The learner protested according to a script and the experimenter prompted the teacher to continue. The shocks were fake and obedience was measured by the maximum level administered.

26 out of 40 participants (65%) continued to the maximum apparent shock of 450 V.

All 40 participants continued to at least the 300 V level in the baseline study.

They predicted that only around 0.1% of participants would reach the maximum shock level.

People may obey an authority figure even when the instruction conflicts with their conscience and appears to harm another person.

Following an instruction from a person perceived to have authority.

A person working with the researcher who pretends to be an ordinary participant or another person in the study.

Point: The sample may not represent everyone. Evidence: It consisted of 40 male volunteers from one US area. Explain: Gender and cultural differences could affect obedience. Link: The findings may not generalise to all people or societies.

Point: The sample included men from varied occupational backgrounds. Evidence: Participants were not all from one occupation. Explain: This gives some variation within the sample but does not solve the limitations of its size and composition. Link: Generalisability remains limited.

Point: The procedure was highly standardised. Evidence: The task and experimenter's prompts followed a consistent procedure. Explain: Researchers can repeat the procedure and compare results. Link: This supports reliability, although repeatability does not prove that obedience is identical across settings.

Point: The study helps explain obedience to authority in real life. Evidence: Participants continued despite believing another person was being harmed. Explain: People may follow instructions because they trust authority or feel pressure to comply. Link: This can help explain harmful obedience in institutions, although the laboratory task differs from many real situations.

Point: Applying the findings directly to real life is difficult. Evidence: Participants were in a controlled university experiment rather than a real emergency or workplace. Explain: Real-life stakes and relationships may change behaviour. Link: The study suggests possible mechanisms but cannot predict every real-world situation.

Point: The controlled setup supports confidence that participants' behaviour was observed under consistent conditions. Evidence: The task and prompts were standardised. Explain: Differences in the procedure were reduced. Link: This supports procedural control but does not prove that the study measured everyday obedience perfectly.

Point: The task may lack ecological validity. Evidence: Participants were in a staged learning experiment rather than an ordinary social situation. Explain: They might behave differently outside a laboratory. Link: The findings may not fully reflect obedience in everyday life.

Point: Participants may have guessed the purpose or suspected the shocks were fake. Evidence: The setting and learner's reactions could make the situation seem unusual. Explain: Their behaviour may have been influenced by what they thought the researcher expected. Link: This could weaken the validity of the obedience measure, although suspicion cannot be assumed for every participant.

Point: The learner's increasingly strong protests created a clear conflict between obeying and refusing. Evidence: Participants had to decide whether to continue despite apparent distress. Explain: This made obedience under moral pressure observable. Link: The task captured an important aspect of obedience even if it was artificial.

Point: Participants were deceived about the real purpose and the shocks. Evidence: They believed they were studying learning and memory and that the learner could be shocked. Explain: They could not make a fully informed decision about the true procedure. Link: This raises concerns about informed consent.

Point: The study risked causing distress. Evidence: Some participants displayed signs of tension during the procedure. Explain: Believing they might be harming another person could cause psychological discomfort. Link: This raises concerns about protection from harm.

Point: The experimenter's prompts could make withdrawal feel difficult. Evidence: Participants were repeatedly encouraged to continue when they hesitated. Explain: They may have felt pressured to obey rather than freely leave. Link: This raises concerns about the right to withdraw.

Point: The study's deception could be defended as helping investigate genuine obedience. Evidence: Knowing the true aim in advance could have changed participants' behaviour. Explain: Concealing the aim made the situation more realistic to participants. Link: This explains the methodological rationale but does not remove the ethical concerns.

They may perceive the experimenter as legitimate authority and assume responsibility lies with that authority figure rather than themselves.

A respected institution may increase trust in the authority figure and make instructions seem legitimate.

If someone believes the authority figure is responsible for the consequences they may feel less personally accountable.

Small increases in the apparent harm may make each next step easier to accept than one extreme instruction at the beginning.

An employee may follow a manager's questionable instruction because the manager has authority and the employee feels pressure to comply.

A student may obey a teacher or headteacher because they see the person as an authority figure. The strength of the link depends on the specific situation.

They could recognise personal responsibility question the authority's instruction and refuse to continue.

Know the aim sample and sampling method the procedure sequence the 65% result and at least one strong PEEL point for each relevant GRAVE category.

Exact switch labels every voltage in the learner's protest sequence and memorising the experimenter's prods word for word. Keep exact details only when the question specifically requires them.

To investigate how situational factors affect obedience by changing features of the original experiment.

Experimenter leaves the room; participants can contact him by telephone. Only 22.5% obeyed to 450 V compared with 65% in the baseline.

Physical presence of an authority figure increases obedience because participants may feel less pressure to comply when the authority is absent.

The study moved from prestigious Yale to a run-down office. Full obedience fell from 65% to 47.5%.

The prestigious setting may increase obedience by making the authority seem more legitimate, but it is not the only influence.

The experimenter left and an ordinary-seeming confederate suggested increasing the shocks. Only 20% obeyed to 450 V.

People are less likely to obey when instructions come from someone without clear formal authority.

Participants who rebelled in Variation 13 watched a confederate administer the shocks instead. 11 out of 16 allowed the confederate to reach 450 V.

People may refuse to carry out harmful actions themselves yet allow someone else to do them, suggesting personal involvement matters.

The learner mentioned a heart condition and complained of chest pains at 150 V. More participants stopped at this point than in the baseline.

Using a sample of 40 women produced the same 65% full-obedience rate as the baseline male sample.

Obedience fell to 22.5% when the experimenter left, supporting the importance of the authority figure's physical presence.

Obedience fell from 65% at Yale to 47.5% in Bridgeport, suggesting institutional prestige affects obedience.

Full obedience fell to 20% when an ordinary-seeming person suggested increasing the shocks instead of the experimenter directing the task.

Point: They provide evidence that obedience depends on the situation. Evidence: Full obedience changed across conditions, from 65% in the baseline to 22.5% in Variation 7. Explain: This suggests that obedience is not simply a fixed personality trait. Link: The variations support a situational explanation of obedience.

Point: Some variations changed several features at once. Evidence: In Variation 13 the experimenter left and another person suggested the shocks. Explain: The drop in obedience may not be due solely to the change in authority status. Link: Conclusions about individual factors should be cautious.

Point: The findings may not transfer perfectly to everyday life. Evidence: Participants took part in an artificial experiment involving fake shocks. Explain: Real-life relationships and consequences differ. Link: The variations suggest how authority can influence behaviour but cannot predict every real situation.

Point: Participants were deceived and could experience distress. Evidence: They believed the learner might be receiving harmful shocks. Explain: This raises concerns about informed consent and protection from harm. Link: The variations share important ethical problems with the baseline study.

If a supervisor leaves employees unsupervised they may feel more able to question or ignore an instruction.

Someone may be more willing to trust an instruction from a respected institution than from an unfamiliar organisation.

A person may challenge a colleague's questionable suggestion more readily than a direct instruction from their manager.

A person may refuse to do something unethical themselves but fail to intervene when someone else does it.

A person may be more likely to refuse an instruction when the possible harm to another person becomes personally salient.

Know the change and result for Variations 7 10 and 13; know what Variation 13a adds; learn one overall evaluation point about situational evidence and one limitation about changing multiple factors.

Conducted a field experiment in New York using male actors dressed as a security guard a milkman or a person in ordinary clothes. They asked members of the public to follow simple instructions.

The security guard was obeyed on 76% of occasions the milkman on 47% and the ordinary-dressed person on 30%.

People are more likely to obey someone who appears to have higher status or legitimate authority.

Bickman's guard received more compliance than the ordinary-dressed person. This supports the idea that perceived authority and status affect whether people follow instructions.

Point: The study took place in a real public setting. Evidence: Actors gave instructions to members of the public. Explain: Behaviour was less artificial than obedience in a laboratory task. Link: This strengthens the real-world relevance of the finding that visible authority cues affect compliance.

Point: Clothing may not have been the only factor affecting compliance. Evidence: The guard milkman and ordinary-dressed actor differed in their overall appearance and implied roles. Explain: The results may reflect several status cues rather than clothing alone. Link: The study supports perceived authority but does not isolate every cause.

A field study in a hospital where a confederate posing as a doctor telephoned nurses and instructed them to administer twice the daily dose of a drug. The drug was harmless and fake.

21 out of 22 nurses followed the doctor's instruction and attempted to administer the medication despite it breaking hospital rules.

Nurses showed high obedience to a perceived authority figure even when the instruction conflicted with normal procedure.

Both studies found high obedience to an authority figure. Hofling's hospital setting suggests that obedience can occur in real institutions as well as a laboratory.

Point: The study has strong real-world relevance. Evidence: Nurses were contacted at work and asked to follow an instruction that conflicted with hospital policy. Explain: The situation resembled real professional decisions more closely than Milgram's laboratory task. Link: It supports the application of obedience research to institutions.

Point: The study used deception and created a potentially serious situation. Evidence: Nurses believed a doctor had ordered an excessive dose. Explain: This raises ethical concerns even though the drug was harmless and fake. Link: Realism must be balanced against participant welfare.

Point: Bickman and Hofling provide supporting evidence that perceived authority affects compliance. Evidence: Bickman's security guard was obeyed more often than the ordinary-dressed person and 21 of 22 nurses followed Hofling's doctor's instruction. Explain: Both studies suggest people may comply with people they perceive as legitimate authority figures. Link: These findings strengthen the argument that situational authority can influence obedience.

Point: Participants may have responded to clues about what the experiment required. Evidence: Milgram's unusual laboratory task may have made some participants question whether the shocks were genuine. Explain: If participants were guessing the study's purpose their behaviour may not represent genuine obedience. Link: This creates a possible internal validity limitation although it does not prove that all participants disbelieved the setup.

Point: Baumrind criticised Milgram's study for the stress and deception experienced by participants. Evidence: Participants believed they might be harming another person and some showed signs of distress. Explain: This challenges whether the study adequately protected participants from psychological harm. Link: The findings are influential but their ethical costs need consideration.

Point: Standardisation supports replicability. Evidence: Participants received the same apparatus and standardised verbal prods. Explain: Researchers can repeat the procedure and compare whether similar obedience levels occur. Link: This strengthens reliability but does not remove issues such as demand characteristics.

Point: Obedience research may help explain behaviour in institutions and historical events. Evidence: The research can be applied cautiously to schools hospitals workplaces and cases of destructive obedience. Explain: People may comply because they perceive authority as legitimate or feel responsible to someone higher in a hierarchy. Link: This makes the research useful but a real event may involve additional factors that the laboratory study does not explain.

21 out of 22 nurses attempted to comply with the doctor's order. Remember this as about 95% if a percentage is useful.

76% compliance for the security guard 47% for the milkman and 30% for the ordinary-dressed person.

An explanation of obedience suggesting that people obey legitimate authority figures by entering an agentic state and transferring responsibility for their actions to the authority.

A state in which a person acts as an agent for an authority figure and feels that the authority is responsible for their actions.

A state in which a person acts independently and feels personally responsible for their behaviour and its consequences.

The change from the autonomous state to the agentic state when a person perceives someone as a legitimate authority.

Authority that a person believes has the right to give instructions because of their position or status.

The belief that responsibility for an action belongs to the authority figure rather than the person carrying out the instruction.

The psychological and physical discomfort experienced when a person obeys an instruction that conflicts with their own moral beliefs.

Participants showed signs such as nervous laughter sweating and trembling while continuing with the procedure.

Children are taught to obey parents and teachers through rewards for obedience and consequences for defiance. This may encourage obedience to authority later in life.

Obedience may have evolved because fitting into a social hierarchy and avoiding conflict can help groups function and survive.

Participants may have viewed the experimenter as legitimate authority entered the agentic state and felt the experimenter was responsible for the apparent harm.

In the agentic state a person sees themselves as carrying out an authority's wishes. In the autonomous state they make their own decisions and accept personal responsibility.

A person may feel distressed because the action they carry out conflicts with their own moral beliefs even though they believe the authority is responsible.

Some participants explained their behaviour by saying they were following the experimenter's orders. This is consistent with transferring responsibility to authority.

Obedience decreased when the experimenter's physical presence or formal authority was reduced. This is consistent with perceived authority influencing the agentic shift.

A security guard was obeyed on 76% of occasions compared with 47% for a milkman and 30% for a person in ordinary clothes. This supports the idea that visible status cues influence compliance.

21 out of 22 nurses attempted to follow a doctor's instruction to give a patient an excessive dose. This supports the influence of perceived legitimate authority in a real workplace.

Point: Agency Theory is supported by research. Evidence: In Hofling's study 21 out of 22 nurses attempted to follow the doctor's order. Explain: The nurses may have viewed the doctor as legitimate authority and accepted the instruction despite hospital rules. Link: This supports the theory's claim that authority can encourage obedience in real-life settings.

Point: Perceived authority status affects compliance. Evidence: Bickman's security guard was obeyed more often than the ordinary-dressed person. Explain: People may treat someone who looks authoritative as having the right to give instructions. Link: This supports the importance of legitimate authority in Agency Theory.

Point: Obedience decreased when authority was less immediate or less formal. Evidence: Full obedience was 22.5% in Variation 7 and 20% in Variation 13. Explain: Participants may have been less likely to make an agentic shift when the experimenter's authority was reduced. Link: This supports the role of perceived authority although other situational changes may also explain the results.

Point: Agency Theory does not fully explain why some people resist authority. Evidence: Some participants refused to continue in Milgram's study. Explain: They may have remained autonomous and accepted personal responsibility but the theory does not fully explain why they made that choice. Link: Other factors may be needed to explain individual differences in obedience.

Point: Agency Theory is not the only explanation of obedience. Evidence: The authoritarian personality explanation focuses on personality characteristics rather than only the situation. Explain: Obedience may reflect a combination of personal and situational factors. Link: Agency Theory may explain some obedience but not every case.

Point: The theory may not explain obedience to leaders who lack legitimate authority. Evidence: Jonestown is an example that can be difficult to explain through legitimate authority alone. Explain: Charisma and referent power may help explain why followers complied. Link: Other explanations such as social power theory may be needed.

Point: The agentic shift is difficult to observe directly. Evidence: Researchers can observe obedience and signs of distress but cannot directly see a person's internal state. Explain: Statements made after a study may not fully reveal what caused a person's behaviour. Link: This makes the mechanism harder to test directly.

Point: The survival value explanation is difficult to test directly. Evidence: The theory suggests obedience evolved because it helped groups maintain social order. Explain: Evidence that obedience happens today does not by itself prove that natural selection produced it. Link: This part of the theory is more speculative than the experimental evidence.

Point: Agency Theory can help interpret destructive obedience in real-world events. Evidence: It has been applied to historical atrocities and abuses of authority. Explain: People may justify their actions by claiming they were following orders. Link: The theory can help explain transferred responsibility but other political and social influences may also be important.

An employee follows an unsafe instruction from a manager and claims the manager is responsible. This could illustrate an agentic state and diffusion of responsibility.

A student follows a teacher's instruction because they see the teacher as legitimate authority. This may illustrate the agentic shift.

A person refuses an unethical instruction and accepts personal responsibility for the decision. This is consistent with remaining in the autonomous state.

A worker follows an instruction that conflicts with their values but shows distress. This could illustrate moral strain while in the agentic state.

Agency Theory may not fully explain obedience if followers do not view the leader as legitimately authorised. Charisma and referent power may provide a competing explanation.

Agentic state autonomous state agentic shift legitimate authority diffusion of responsibility moral strain socialisation and survival value.

Hofling et al. (1966) because 21 out of 22 nurses attempted to obey a doctor's instruction in a real hospital setting.

People may obey because they perceive authority as legitimate and transfer responsibility for their actions to that authority rather than seeing themselves as personally responsible.

Jerry Burger (2009), a partial replication of Milgram’s obedience research.

To investigate whether Milgram’s findings about obedience still applied in modern society and to examine whether a model refusing to continue would influence participants’ obedience.

Base condition: participants completed the obedience procedure without a model refusing. Model-refusal condition: a second teacher refused to continue, allowing Burger to test whether this affected the participant’s obedience.

70 American adults: 29 men and 41 women, aged 20–81 years. The mean age was 42.9 and the median age was 41.

Volunteer sampling through advertisements and flyers, including newspaper and online advertisements and library flyers.

Participants were screened to exclude people who knew about Milgram’s study, had taken more than two psychology classes, or had certain emotional difficulties or drug dependencies that might make the procedure especially distressing.

They were randomly allocated to the base or model-refusal condition.

Whether participants completed the base procedure or the model-refusal procedure.

Whether participants continued beyond 150 volts or stopped at or before 150 volts.

They received \$50 in advance and were told they could keep it even if they withdrew.

Burger used a similar teacher–learner obedience task, with the participant believing they were administering increasingly strong electric shocks for incorrect answers. However, the procedure was modified to improve ethical safeguards and ended at 150 volts.

The participant acted as the teacher and was instructed to administer a shock after an incorrect answer. The shock level increased in 15-volt increments.

The learner’s prerecorded responses included a grunt at 75 volts, followed by a strong protest at 150 volts. The learner also referred to a heart condition and expressed concern about continuing.

To reduce the risk of distress while still testing whether participants would continue to the point at which the learner made a strong protest and asked to stop.

Burger’s ethical modification of Milgram’s procedure: the experiment stopped at 150 volts, allowing researchers to study willingness to continue up to that point without exposing participants to the full original procedure.

A second teacher, who was actually a confederate, refused to continue at 90 volts. The participant was then asked to take over, allowing Burger to investigate whether witnessing disobedience reduced their own obedience.

Whether seeing another person refuse an authority figure would make participants more likely to stop administering shocks themselves.

The Interpersonal Reactivity Index, a 28-item measure of empathy, and the Desirability of Control Scale, a 20-item measure of desire for control.

Desire for control concerns how much a person wants to influence or control events. It should not be treated as identical to locus of control, which concerns whether people attribute outcomes mainly to their own actions or external forces.

28 out of 40 participants (70%) continued beyond 150 volts, while 12 (30%) stopped at or before 150 volts.

19 out of 30 participants (63.3%) continued beyond 150 volts, while 11 (36.7%) stopped at or before 150 volts.

In Milgram’s Variation 5, 33 out of 40 participants (82.5%) continued beyond 150 volts, while 7 (17.5%) stopped at or before 150 volts. Burger’s continuation rates were lower, but the difference was not statistically significant.

Variation 5 included the learner complaining about a heart condition, making it more comparable to Burger’s procedure than Milgram’s original 1963 baseline study.

A substantial proportion of participants continued beyond 150 volts, suggesting that obedience to authority remained evident decades after Milgram’s research. However, the findings do not prove that modern obedience levels were exactly the same.

No statistically significant reduction was found. Although 70% continued in the base condition compared with 63.3% in the model-refusal condition, this difference was not statistically significant.

There was little difference between men and women in obedience levels in this study.

Empathy did not significantly predict whether participants continued beyond 150 volts. However, participants with higher empathy tended to express reluctance earlier in the procedure.

In the base condition, participants who stopped at or before 150 volts had higher desire-for-control scores. This relationship was not found in the model-refusal condition.

Burger concluded that Milgram’s findings still had relevance: people can remain influenced by situational pressure and authority even when the requested behaviour conflicts with their moral concerns.

PEEL: Burger included adults aged 20–81 and both men and women. This gives the sample a broader age range than a sample restricted to students, potentially improving generalisability to American adults. However, volunteer sampling and screening limit how representative the sample was.

PEEL: Burger used a standardised procedure, including prerecorded learner responses and a structured sequence of shocks. This makes the procedure easier to replicate and helps researchers test whether the findings are consistent.

PEEL: The study suggests that obedience remains relevant in contemporary society. Understanding the influence of authority and social pressure may help explain why people comply with instructions they personally question.

PEEL: Administering apparent electric shocks in a laboratory is an artificial task. Participants may behave differently from how they would in everyday situations, reducing ecological validity. However, the task still created a conflict between following instructions and responding to another person’s distress.

PEEL: Burger introduced stronger safeguards than Milgram, including screening participants, paying them in advance so they could keep the money if they withdrew, and ending the procedure at 150 volts. These measures reduced the likelihood of serious distress.

PEEL: Participants were still deceived about the true nature of the task and believed they were administering shocks. The procedure could cause stress despite the safeguards, so it was not entirely free from ethical concerns.

Burger screened participants for factors that might increase distress, ensured participants could keep their \$50 if they withdrew, used a 150-volt stopping point, and included safeguards intended to reduce psychological harm.

Burger included a wide adult age range and both genders, which may broaden the sample compared with Milgram’s original sample. However, both studies were conducted in the United States, so neither automatically represents people from other cultures.

Burger used a similar obedience paradigm decades later and still found that many participants continued beyond 150 volts. This suggests that obedience was not limited to the historical context of Milgram’s original study.

The procedures were not identical: Burger stopped at 150 volts and introduced additional ethical safeguards. The studies also used different samples and contexts, so their percentages should not be treated as a perfectly controlled comparison.

Burger assumed that participants willing to continue beyond 150 volts would have continued towards 450 volts. Because the experiment stopped at 150 volts, researchers could not directly observe whether those participants would have continued through the entire original procedure.

It suggests that seeing one other person refuse authority may not be enough to produce a statistically significant reduction in obedience. However, the study does not establish that social models can never influence obedience.

Burger used one confederate teacher who refused at 90 volts. Milgram’s Variation 5 was a different condition involving a learner’s heart-condition complaint, while Milgram also investigated the influence of rebellious peers in other variations. These conditions should not be confused.

People who volunteer for a psychology experiment may differ from those who refuse to take part. Therefore, the sample may not represent all American adults, limiting generalisability.

The controlled procedure allowed comparison between the base and model-refusal conditions. Random allocation helps reduce pre-existing participant differences as an explanation for differences between conditions.

The controlled laboratory setting may lack realism, and participants may suspect the task is not genuine. This can affect how naturally they behave.

State that Burger found substantial continuation beyond 150 volts, supporting the continued relevance of obedience research. Qualify the conclusion by noting the ethical modifications, the artificial setting, and the fact that continuation beyond 150 volts does not prove participants would have continued to 450 volts.

Base condition: 70% continued beyond 150V. Model refusal: 63.3% continued beyond 150V. Milgram Variation 5: 82.5% continued beyond 150V. The Burger difference was not statistically significant.

Know the aims, sample, two conditions, 150-volt stopping point, exact results, conclusion, and three strong evaluation points: ethical safeguards, limits of the 150-volt assumption, and generalisability or validity.

Conformity is a change in a person's behaviour or beliefs in response to real or imagined group pressure, so that they fit in with a group norm.

Herbert Kelman (1958) identified compliance, identification and internalisation.

Compliance occurs when someone publicly agrees with a group but privately disagrees. It is usually temporary and motivated by wanting approval or avoiding rejection.

Identification occurs when someone adopts a group's behaviour or attitudes because they value membership of the group. The change may last while they identify with that group or role.

Internalisation occurs when someone genuinely accepts a group's beliefs or behaviour as correct. They agree both publicly and privately, and the change can continue after the group is no longer present.

Compliance involves public agreement without private acceptance; identification involves adopting a group's norms to maintain membership or a valued identity; internalisation involves genuine private and public acceptance.

Ingratiational conformity, associated with Mann (1969) in the supplied reading, involves conforming strategically to gain favour or impress others, rather than simply reacting to group pressure.

Normative social influence (NSI) and informational social influence (ISI).

NSI occurs when someone conforms because they want to be liked, accepted or approved of by others, or fear rejection if they disagree.

Compliance, because a person may publicly agree with the group while privately maintaining their own view.

ISI occurs when someone conforms because they believe others have more accurate information and want to make the correct decision.

Internalisation, because the person may genuinely accept the group's view as correct.

NSI is likely when people want social acceptance, fear standing out, or care strongly about the group whose opinion they might disagree with.

ISI is likely in ambiguous or unfamiliar situations, during uncertainty or a crisis, or when other people appear to have greater knowledge or expertise.

A person may both want to avoid rejection and believe the group is correct. The two influences are not mutually exclusive, although one may be stronger in a particular situation.

NSI is motivated by the desire to be liked or accepted; ISI is motivated by the desire to be correct. NSI is often associated with public compliance, whereas ISI is often associated with private acceptance.

The supplied reading links this to Social Identity Theory: people adopt the norms of a group they identify with because those norms help define their sense of who they are.

NSI focuses on gaining acceptance or avoiding rejection. Referent informational influence focuses on a valued group identity, so a person may follow the group's norms even when nobody is watching.

A situational factor is an external feature of the social situation, such as group size, unanimity, task difficulty or whether responses are public or private.

A dispositional factor is an individual characteristic, such as confidence, anxiety or locus of control, that may influence susceptibility to group pressure.

Conformity generally increases as the majority grows, but the effect tends to level off after a small majority. Adding more people does not necessarily keep increasing pressure at the same rate.

When everyone else appears to agree, an individual may feel that disagreeing will make them stand out. A unanimous majority can therefore strengthen social pressure and uncertainty about one's own judgement.

A dissenter shows that disagreement is possible and reduces the feeling of being the only person who disagrees. This can make it easier for someone to express an independent view.

When a task is difficult or ambiguous, people may become less confident in their own judgement and rely more on others for information. This is particularly relevant to ISI.

Private responses can reduce pressure to gain social approval because others cannot directly judge or reject the person's answer. This may make it easier to express a genuine opinion.

People who lack confidence in their judgement may be more likely to seek reassurance from others. However, personality alone does not explain all conformity; situational pressure also matters.

People with a more internal locus of control tend to believe that outcomes depend on their own actions and may be more willing to trust their own judgement. This is a possible influence, not a guarantee that they will resist conformity.

Cultures that place greater value on group harmony may show higher average conformity than cultures that place greater emphasis on individual autonomy. These are broad patterns, not rules that predict every individual's behaviour.

The reading suggests that people may be more open to social influence when in a positive mood or after relief from fear. Treat this as a possible influence rather than a universal rule.

Jenness investigated whether people's estimates would shift towards a group consensus when the correct answer was uncertain.

Participants first estimated the number of beans in a bottle individually, discussed the estimate as a group, and then made another individual estimate.

Almost all participants shifted their estimates towards the group's consensus.

It suggests that group discussion can influence individual judgements when the answer is uncertain, supporting the idea that people use others as a source of information.

Sherif aimed to investigate how group norms develop when a situation is ambiguous and people lack a clear objective reference point.

In a dark room, a stationary point of light appears to move. Because its movement cannot be judged against a clear reference point, estimates vary.

Participants estimated how far a stationary light appeared to move, first individually and then in groups. Across repeated judgements, they heard one another's estimates.

Participants' estimates converged towards a shared group norm over repeated trials, including when an individual's initial estimate differed from the others.

When a situation is ambiguous, people may use others' judgements as information and genuinely adjust their own view. This supports informational social influence and internalisation.

The convergence of estimates supports the idea that social interaction can shape individual judgements. Because the task was ambiguous, it is particularly relevant to ISI.

The task was ambiguous, so participants may have been using others as a sensible source of information rather than yielding to pressure. This makes it difficult to separate informational influence from other explanations of conformity.

Tasks such as estimating a light's movement or the number of beans in a bottle may not reflect the stakes of real-life decisions. Therefore, findings may not generalise fully to situations involving relationships, values or important consequences.

Not everyone responds to group pressure in the same way. Personality and confidence may matter, but they do not provide a complete explanation because situational conditions can also strongly affect behaviour.

It can help explain why people follow social trends, adopt group norms or change expressed opinions to fit in. Understanding NSI and ISI can help distinguish pressure for acceptance from reliance on others' information.

Conformity is influenced by both the person's motivation and the situation. People may conform to gain acceptance, to obtain accurate information, or because a group's norms are part of their identity.

Whether group pressure could make an individual give an obviously incorrect answer, even when the correct answer was clear.

People would sometimes conform to a unanimous majority even when the task was unambiguous.

123 male students from the USA were the naive participants.

Each naive participant sat with 6–8 confederates who were working with Asch.

They judged which of three comparison lines was the same length as a standard line.

18 trials in total.

12 trials in which the confederates unanimously gave the same incorrect answer.

The confederates gave the correct answer on the first few trials.

Whether and how often the naive participant gave the majority’s incorrect answer on critical trials.

Participants gave the wrong majority answer on 36.8% of critical trials.

75% conformed at least once.

25% never conformed on any trial.

People may conform even when the correct answer is obvious, but conformity is not inevitable.

It shows that individuals can resist majority pressure; people do not automatically follow a group.

Participants responded to pressure from a group majority rather than following the direct orders of an authority figure.

A change in a person’s behaviour or thinking due to real or imagined group pressure.

Conformity involves going along with group norms or majority influence; obedience involves following instructions from an authority figure.

Publicly agreeing with a group while privately disagreeing with it.

Conforming because a person wants to be associated with a particular group, often while membership is important to them.

Genuinely accepting the group’s beliefs or behaviour as one’s own, including privately.

Conforming because a person wants to be accepted, liked or included and wants to avoid rejection.

Conforming because a person believes other people have better information and can help them identify the correct response.

A participant may give the majority’s answer to avoid standing out or being rejected, despite privately knowing it is wrong.

People may use others’ responses as a source of information, particularly when they are uncertain about the correct answer.

NSI is a strong explanation because the correct answer was clear, so conformity may have reflected social pressure rather than genuine uncertainty.

When a task becomes difficult or ambiguous, people may doubt their own judgement and rely more on the group for information.

Whether the number of people supporting the same answer affects conformity.

Conformity increased sharply as the majority grew from one to three confederates; it rose from 13.6% with two confederates to 31.8% with three. Adding more than three made little further difference.

A larger majority may make its position appear more convincing and increase the social pressure to agree, although the effect does not increase indefinitely.

A situation in which all members of the majority agree with one another.

A unanimous majority makes dissent more difficult because the individual appears to be the only person disagreeing.

Conformity can decrease because the participant is no longer the only person opposing the majority.

When participants could answer anonymously in a variation, conformity fell.

It reduces the social risk of openly disagreeing and the fear of being judged or rejected by the group.

More difficult tasks can increase conformity because people become less confident in their own judgement and rely more on others.

Conformity increased, supporting the idea that uncertainty can make people more reliant on the majority.

An explanation that focuses on characteristics of the individual, such as personality, locus of control or expertise.

The extent to which a person believes outcomes are controlled by their own actions or by external factors.

Believing that outcomes are largely influenced by one’s own actions and decisions.

It may reduce conformity because the person is more likely to rely on their own judgement.

Believing that outcomes are largely influenced by external forces, circumstances or other people.

It may increase conformity because the person may be more inclined to look to others for guidance.

Participants with a more external locus of control were more likely to laugh along with a confederate while watching cartoons than participants with a more internal locus of control.

People with relevant knowledge or skill may be more confident in their own judgement and less likely to conform to an incorrect majority.

Maths specialists were less likely to conform to a majority answer to a difficult Maths question than people who lacked confidence in their Maths ability.

Engineering students conformed only once in 396 trials, suggesting that expertise in technical drawing may have helped them resist majority pressure.

The standardised, replicable procedure allows the study to be repeated, helping researchers assess the reliability of the findings.

It can help explain why people join in with bullying or follow a group even when they privately disagree, informing strategies that encourage individuals to resist group pressure.

The study was conducted in a historical period when conformity may have been more common, so the findings may not fully reflect conformity today.

Judging line lengths in a laboratory is artificial and may not reflect how people respond to social pressure in everyday, consequential situations.

The task had few real-world consequences, so participants’ responses may not reflect how they would behave when the stakes are higher.

Only 75% conformed at least once, while 25% never conformed; conformity depends on the individual and situation.

Locus of control can be difficult to operationalise and measure reliably, which may weaken the reliability of research based on it.

It may be reductionist: expertise is only one influence, and even knowledgeable people may conform under some circumstances.

People facing the same group pressure may respond differently because of their confidence, personality, knowledge or locus of control.

Changing group size, unanimity, anonymity or task difficulty can change conformity, even when the individual’s personality remains the same.

Define conformity, describe the unanimous incorrect majority in Asch’s line task, give the 36.8% critical-trial result or 75% who conformed at least once, then link the findings to majority pressure.

Use the replicable procedure as a strength, then consider the artificial low-jeopardy task and possible lack of temporal validity; explain how each point affects reliability, validity or generalisability.

Identify the group’s unanimous position, explain the pressure to avoid standing out or rejection, and link the person’s behaviour to conformity rather than obedience if no authority is giving orders.

Explain that uncertainty reduces confidence in one’s own judgement, making the group seem more informative and increasing the likelihood of conformity.

Explain that relevant expertise can increase confidence in personal judgement, making the individual less likely to accept an incorrect majority answer.

Conformity is influenced by both the social situation and individual characteristics; majority pressure can be powerful, but it does not make everyone conform.

To investigate whether behaviour in a prison setting was explained more by situational factors or by participants’ personalities (dispositional factors).

An explanation that emphasises the influence of the environment, social roles and circumstances on behaviour.

An explanation that attributes behaviour to an individual’s personality or personal characteristics.

Philip Zimbardo and colleagues in 1973.

Twenty-four male college students selected after psychological and physical screening.

They were randomly assigned to act as guards or prisoners in a simulated prison.

They volunteered after an advertisement seeking participants for a psychological study of prison life.

A basement at Stanford University was converted into a simulated prison with cells and prison-like procedures.

They were given smock-like clothing, identification numbers instead of names, and nylon caps; personal possessions were removed.

Similar uniforms, reflective sunglasses and carried whistles and clubs, creating a sense of authority and anonymity.

He acted as both the principal researcher and the prison superintendent.

Participants rapidly began adapting to their assigned roles, with guards becoming increasingly controlling and prisoners showing distress and submission.

Some guards became increasingly authoritarian, humiliating prisoners, imposing arbitrary punishments and enforcing prison rules harshly.

Some initially resisted, but many became increasingly anxious, passive and compliant; several showed serious emotional distress.

It was planned for two weeks but was terminated after six days.

It was stopped because of escalating abusive behaviour and serious psychological distress among prisoners; Christina Maslach challenged the researchers about the harm being caused.

The prison situation and assigned social roles could strongly influence behaviour, supporting a situational explanation.

Participants began behaving in ways associated with their assigned roles: some guards exercised power harshly, while prisoners increasingly acted submissively.

Adopting behaviour associated with the expectations of a position or role within a social setting.

Zimbardo examined behaviour associated with assigned roles in a powerful social setting; Asch examined whether people conformed to a group’s incorrect judgements.

A shared expectation or rule about how members of a group should behave.

Harsh treatment could become accepted within the guard group, making behaviour that might otherwise seem unacceptable appear normal or expected.

A state in which immersion in a group and reduced personal identifiability can weaken a person’s sense of individual identity and responsibility.

Uniforms, sunglasses and anonymity may have reduced personal accountability, making it easier for some guards to act harshly.

Guards wore similar uniforms and reflective sunglasses, while prisoners were identified by numbers rather than names.

Zimbardo (1969) found that anonymous women delivered about twice as much electric shock to a victim as identifiable participants did.

A state in which repeated experiences of having little control can lead someone to stop trying to change their situation.