P2.S Social Influence — Topic Overview

Social influence examines how other people and social situations shape our behaviour. AQA GCSE covers conformity, obedience, prosocial behaviour and aggression.

Conformity

Conformity: changing behaviour or beliefs to match the group. Asch (1951) demonstrated conformity in his line-matching studies — 75 % of participants conformed at least once even when the group was clearly wrong.

Types of conformity (Kelman):

• Compliance: publicly going along but privately disagreeing
• Identification: conforming to be part of a group
• Internalisation: genuinely adopting the group's views

Why we conform:

• Informational social influence: we look to others when uncertain what is correct
• Normative social influence: we want to be liked and accepted

Factors affecting conformity: group size (three is the minimum for peak effect), unanimity (one ally reduces conformity dramatically), task difficulty.

Obedience

Obedience: complying with the instructions of an authority figure. Milgram (1963) found 65 % of participants administered what they believed to be the maximum 450 V shock to a confederate.

Factors affecting obedience (from Milgram's variations):

• Proximity to victim: less obedience when victim visible
• Legitimacy of authority: uniform / institutional setting increases obedience
• Presence of allies: one dissenting colleague drastically reduced obedience

Agency theory (Milgram): we shift into an "agentic state" when following orders — we see ourselves as the agent of the authority, not responsible for our actions.

Prosocial and antisocial behaviour

Bystander effect (Latané and Darley): less likely to help in a crowd. Key concepts: diffusion of responsibility, pluralistic ignorance.

Aggression (Bandura's Bobo doll study): children imitated aggressive behaviour modelled by adults — social learning theory. Aggression is also influenced by deindividuation (loss of individual identity in groups).

Exam focus

• Describe Milgram's procedure and results precisely
• Explain two factors that affect obedience with reference to Milgram's variations
• Evaluate both conformity and obedience research on ethical and methodological grounds