Social Psychology Booklet

Paper 1
Specification point Notes Homework Extra Qs

● Lesson 1 - Types of conformity: Explanations of conformity

●
● Lesson 2 - Variables affecting conformity
●
● Lessons 3 – Variations of Asch and links to explanations
●
● Lesson 4 - Conformity to social roles as investigated by Zimbardo.

● Lesson 5 – Obedience, Milgram’s research

●
● Lesson 6 - Situational variables investigated by Milgram.
●
● Lesson 7 – Psychological explanations for obedience: agentic state and
legitimacy of authority.
● Lesson 8 - Dispositional explanation for obedience: the Authoritarian
Personality.
Lesson 9 - Dispositional explanation for obedience: the Authoritarian
Personality – Evaluation

● Lesson 10 - Explanations of resistance to social influence - locus of

control.

● Lesson 11 - Explanations of resistance to social influence - social support.

● Lesson 12 - Minority influence including reference to consistency,

commitment and flexibility.
●
● Lesson 10 – Evaluating minority influence.
●
● Lesson 14 - The role of social influence processes in social change.
●
Lesson 1 – Types of conformity and explanations of conformity.

• Conformity is ‘a change in behaviour or belief as a result of real or imagined group

pressure’ (David Myers, 1999)
• Conformity is ‘a tendency for people to adopt the behaviour, attitudes and values
of a reference group’ (Zimbardo et al, 1995)

Definition of conformity:

Types of Conformity

1.)_______________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
_

2.)_______________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
_

3.)_______________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
_

Questions
Identify which type of conformity is being shown for each statement:
1.) Matt has been revising for his History exam. Just before he goes in, three of his friends tell him he has
learnt the wrong date for something. In the exam he writes the date they told him instead of the one he
had learnt from his notes.
 Answer: ____________________
2.) Claudia wants to be a cheerleader. She starts to wear her hair in a pony-tail like they all do and she trains
every morning, she also starts to speak like the other cheerleaders and to hang out where they do. When
she starts her exams, she decides that cheerleading isn’t actually that important and she stops it all.

Answer: ____________________

3.) Jack doesn’t like the taste of alcohol. When he is hanging out with a new group of
friends they pass a bottle of vodka round and he takes a swig even though he still
thinks it is disgusting.
Answer: ____________________

Why do people conform?

Normative Social Influence Informational Social Influence

Why do people not conform?

Independence Anti-conformity
Match up Activity:

Identification Anticonformity
The desire to be right. We conform
by looking at others whom we
believe to be correct, to give us
information about how to behave,
Compliance Conformity particularly in novel or ambiguous
situations.

Publicly conforming to the

Normative behaviour or views of others
Independence but privately maintaining one’s
social influence
own views.

The desire to be liked. We a change in behaviour or

Informational conform because we think belief as a result of real or
social influence
Internalisation that others will approve imagined group pressure
and accept us.

A conversion, or true Unresponsive to the

change of private views to norms of the group.
match those of the group.
 Adopting the views or behaviour
Consistently oppose the of a group publicly and privately
norms of the group. because one values membership
of that group. Depends on
presence of group.

Evaluation
Use page 17 of your illuminate book to complete the evaluation table
Normative Social Influence
Research Support…..
✓

Individual differences……
🗴

Informational Social Influence

Research support….
✓

Individual differences…….
🗴

Extra practice – Exam questions

1.) The following phrases refer to different types of conformity.

Select the two phrases that describe internalisation. Tick two boxes only.

A The deepest level of conformity.

B The individual conforms publicly with the rest

of the group but may privately disagree with
them.

C
The beliefs of the group become part of the
individual’s own belief system.

D
The individual goes along with the group but
does not agree with them.

E
The individual changes his / her beliefs, but it
is a temporary change.

(Total 2 marks)

2.) a.) What is meant by normative social influence?

(2)

b.) Andrea has recently started a new job and on her first day at work she noticed
that all her colleagues were much more smartly dressed than she was.

Explain the likely effect of normative social influence on Andrea’s behaviour.

(2)
(Total 4 marks)

3.) Jan and Norah have just finished their first year at university where they lived in a house with six other
students. All the other students were very health conscious and ate only organic food. Jan had listened to their
point of view and now she also eats only organic food. Norah was happy to eat organic food while in the house,
but when she went home for the holidays she ate whatever her mother cooked. Both girls conformed, but for
different reasons.

Explain which type of conformity each girl was showing.

(Total 4 marks)

Lesson 2 – Asch (Conformity research)

Complete the information on this key study:
Aim

Procedure and Participants

Table

Results
Fill in the gaps activity:

Asch used an ………………… task to study conformity. He tested ………… male

undergraduate students. Each participant was put in a group with ……… people who
were actually ………………………. They had to match …………… of the same length. Asch
found that ……% conformed at least once.

Evaluation
Lesson 3 – Asch variations
Variations on Asch Experiment:
Unanimity –
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Supports:

__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________

Task difficulty–
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Supports:

__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________

Size of majority
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Supports:

__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________

Play your cards right

Discuss at least two factors that have been shown to affect conformity. Refer to
evidence in your answer.
(Total 16 marks)
First factor to affect conformity (knowledge) :

Second factor (knowledge) :

PEEL 1: Supports normative social influence

PEEL 1: Supports informational social influence

 PEEL 3: Limited applications of findings

PEEL 4 (Extension)

Extra practice – Exam questions

1.) (a) Outline one method that psychologists have used to study conformity.
(2)
(b) Explain one limitation of this method.
(2)
(c) Suggest an appropriate way of overcoming this limitation.
(2)
(Total 6 marks)

2.) (a) One type of conformity is compliance. What do psychologists mean by the term
compliance?
(1)

(b) A group of students has to decide what to do with the money left over in their
school fund. Most of them want to give the money to a local charity. However, two
students, Lisa and Sean, want to buy a pool table for the common room.

Briefly explain how two factors might affect whether or not Lisa and Sean will
conform to the rest of the group.
(4)
(Total 5 marks)

3.) Discuss research into conformity.

 (Total 8 marks)

Lesson 4 – Zimbardo (Conformity to social roles)

Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment is a key study in

demonstrating how people will conform to social roles. Whilst
watching the video during the lesson, complete the following
gap fill activity:
____________ explanation of behaviour:
Presumes people will act according to their individual personalities regardless
of the situation

______________explanation of behaviour:
Presumes people will act in a way that they think is required by their social
role – what is normal/expected in different situations (i.e. they will conform to the role they have been
assigned)

Aim: To see if __________________________________________________________________________

Participants: Male students, volunteer sample, paid _______ per day. In total, ________
of most stable volunteers chosen. 2 reserves, 1 dropped out – 1________prisoners,
_______guards.
Procedure: ‘Prisoners’ unexpectedly arrested ________. Put through ________ procedure,
searched, given prison uniform. Guards had uniforms. Prisoners allowed certain ‘rights’
e.g. 3 supervised toilet trips, 2 hrs reading or letter writing.
Results: Guards grew increasingly tyrannical, prisoners depressed. ___ prisoners had to
be released early with extreme depression. Experiment was supposed to last 2 weeks
but was ended after __________.
Conclusions: Guards and prisoners conformed to the social roles they were assigned,
supporting the _____________ explanation of behaviour.
Evaluation PEEL points:

Evaluation Continued

Stron
g
evide Evidence B: In the
nce BBC study,
prisoners were
for
given the possibility
of ‘promotion’ after
Evidence D: The 3 days from the
male participants prisoners group to
in the SPE were the guards group.
Evidence E:
psychologically As a result, the
Over the first
and physically prisoners offered no
few days of the
screened and the challenge to the
SPE, the
24 most ‘normal’ guards in the first
guards grew
and ‘stable’ were few days.
 Evidence G:
Haslam (2012)
suggests that
Zimbardo gave his
guards a general
sense of how he
expected them to
behave. This
suggests that the
‘behavioural scripts
Evidence A: Even associated with the
when the roles’ were not the
participants in the sole source of
SPE were unaware guidance.
that they were being Evidence C: In
watched, their Abu Ghraib, a
behaviour still military prison in
conformed to their Evidence F: Banu
Iraq, the Iraqi
‘guard’ or ‘prisoner’ and Movahedi (19
prisoners were
role. One prisoner presented some o
abused and
even asked for details of the SPE
tortured by
‘parole’ rather than experimental
American soldiers.
asking to withdraw procedure to a lar
Situational factors
from the study. sample of student
such as lack of
who had never he
training, boredom,
Stron of the study. The v
and a lack of
g majority of the
accountability
evide students guessed
were present in
the purpose of the
nce both Abu Ghraib
Extra practice – Exam
again
questions and the SPE.
study was to show
ordinary people
st
assigned the role
1.) Outline the procedures and findings of Zimbardo's research into conformity to prisoner or guard
would act like a
social roles.
prisoner or guard.
(Total 4 marks)
2.) Which two of the following statements about Zimbardo's prison study are
correct?

Tick two boxes only.

The study showed how…

roles affect behaviour.

A

B people obey authority.

 unanimity affects behaviour.
C

people conform to the majority.

D

behaviour is influenced by loss of identity.

E

(Total 2 marks)

3.) Many people have criticised Zimbardo’s prison study.

Identify and briefly discuss two reasons why people have criticised Zimbardo’s
prison study.
(Total 6 marks)

4.) Outline and evaluate research into conformity.

(Total 12 marks)

Lesson 5 – Milgram (Obedience)

Definition of Obedience

Conformity or Obedience?
Anne agrees to try snails to avoid upsetting her French exchange partner.
_______________________
Wilf runs round the pitch as his coach told him to.
_______________________
The recruit remade his bed following a ‘request’ from the sergeant.
_______________________
The car driver pulled over to allow an ambulance through after three others did the
same.
_______________________
Flora arrived at the new yoga class and took off her shoes having noted that everyone
else was barefoot. _______________________

Fill in the gaps:

Milgram conducted an experiment into obedience. His participants were

…………………………. Upon arrival they were introduced to another participant who was
actually a ………………… They drew lots to see who would be the …………. And who
would be the …………... The real participant was always the ……………..They had to
administer ………………………………. every time the learner got a question wrong. If the
participant asked to stop, the experimenter gave ………………… The experiment only
stopped when…………………………………… or ……………………… Milgram found that

…………… Went to the maximum voltage of ……………

Evaluation:
Homework– Exam questions
1.) Some psychologists criticise Milgram’s research into obedience to authority, in
terms of both methodological issues and ethical issues.

Explain two criticisms of Milgram’s research.

(Total 6 marks)

3.) Describe two ethical issues that can be illustrated by Milgram’s research into obedience to authority.
(Total 4 marks)
Lesson 6 – Milgram (Obedience) Variations

Variations of Milgram

Variation Obedience rate %

Original experiment

Venue moved to seedy offices in nearby town

Teacher and learner in same room

Teacher had to force learners hand onto plate

Teacher given support from others who refuse

Teacher paired with assistant who threw switches

Experimenter in lab coat ‘called away’ and a ‘ordinary member of the public’ in
everyday clothes takes his place

Variation 1:

Variation 2:

Variation 3:
Extra practice – Exam questions

4.) Identify two factors that have been shown to affect obedience to authority.
Briefly discuss how each of these factors affects obedience to authority.
(Total 6 marks)

2.) The following results are percentages of participants who gave the maximum shock,
in variations of Milgram’s experiment into obedience to authority.

Condition % Participants
obeying

Experimenter and two obedient 92.5%

confederates are in the
same room as the participant.

Experimenter is in the same room as the 65%

participant.

Experimenter is in a different room from 20.5%

the participant.

Experimenter and two disobedient 10%

confederates are in
the same room as the participant.

What do these results suggest about the power of the confederates in

variations of Milgram’s study?
(Total 4 marks)
Lesson 7 – Psychological explanations for obedience (agentic state and legitimacy
of authority) binding factors, power, hierarchical,
agentic state, autonomous state,
Fill in the gaps with the key words: agent,

Agentic state
When we blame the person giving the order for any negative consequences of our
actions, becoming an ‘________’ of theirs.
The opposite of this is being in an ___________________ (we feel a sense of responsibility
for our own actions). The shift from autonomy to agency is known as the
‘__________________’.
The person remains in the agentic state because of ‘____________________’ which are
aspects of the situation which allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging
effect of their behaviour and thus reduce the ‘moral strain’ they are feeling e.g. blame
the victim
Legitimacy of authority
We are more likely to obey people whom we see to have accepted __________ over us.
Society is __________________ and we are taught to and accept that some people have
power over us and we should hand control of our behaviour over to them.
The authority someone has is justified by the individual’s position of power within the
social hierarchy.
Activity:
Evaluation of Agentic state:
Evaluation of legitimacy of authority

Strengths of Legitimacy of authority ✓ Weaknesses of Legitimacy of authority 🗴

Extra practice – Exam questions

1.) a.) Outline two explanations for obedience.
(6)

(b) Briefly evaluate one of the explanations that you have outlined in your
answer.
(3)
(Total 9 marks)

2.) Some research into obedience has been carried out in laboratories. Other
studies into obedience have been carried out in the real world, including field
experiments and observations.

(a) Outline one advantage of conducting obedience research outside a laboratory

setting.

(b) Outline one limitation of conducting obedience research outside a laboratory

setting.
(Total 4 marks)

3.) When you are a passenger on a train, you are much more likely to move to
another seat if the ticket collector tells you to move than if another passenger tells
you to do so.

Use your knowledge of why people obey to explain this behaviour.

(Total 4 marks)

4.) Discuss at least two explanations for defiance of authority. Refer to evidence in
your answer.
(Total 16 marks)

Lesson 8 – Dispositional explanations for obedience (authoritarian personality)

Fill in the gaps with the missing key information:
Adorno (1950)
• Believed that a high level of obedience was basically a psychological disorder, and
tried to locate the causes of it in the ______________ of the individual
• Studied more than __________ middle-class, white Americans and their unconscious
attitudes towards other racial groups. One of the measures they used was the
______________ (used to measure tendency towards fascism, one characteristic of
which is authoritarianism).
• People who scored highly on the F-scale (and other measures) identified with
‘__________’ people and were contemptuous of the ‘________’. They were conscious
 of their own and others status, showing excessive respect, deference and servility
to those of a higher status.

Authoritarian characteristics identified by Adorno:

1.)

2.)

3.)

4.)

5.)

6.)

Complete the brain storm of aspects of parenting that Adorno believed led to the
authoritarian personality:

Strict discipline

Activity:
Circle the characteristics from the authoritarian personality:

Forgiveness
Respect Conventional Superstition
attitudes
Empathy Inflexible
Love
Submissiveness
Apply it:

Situational Variables: Social-Psychological: Dispositional:

Lesson 9 – Dispositional explanations for obedience evaluation
Authoritarianism personality and politics:
Why are voters swaying towards Trump from a psychological perspective?

How is authoritarianism being displayed in the video?

Any issues with methodology used in this research?

Evaluation:
Cut and stick evaluation points to form full PEEL paragraphs:
Read and mark the following example answer:
Milgram’s research required people to give electric shocks to
another person. He told his participants that this was a test of
learning on memory and that they were the teacher and the
other person was the learner, although he was actually a
confederate of Milgram’s. Every time the learner got a
question wrong they were told to give them an electric shock
by the experimenter. These shocks increased by 15 volts each
time, going up to 450 volts. This research found that 65% of
participants went to 450 volts and all went to at least 300
volts.
Milgram believed that it was the situation that people find
themselves in which determines whether they obey or not.
When Milgram moved his experiment from Yale university to a
run-down office block, the obedience rate dropped from 65%
to 45%.
Whether the experimenter wore a uniform had a much larger
impact on the level of obedience shown. Bushman’s research
had a female researcher dressed either as a beggar, a
business executive or in a police style uniform asking people to
give a confederate some money for a parking meter. When she
was in uniform 72% of people obeyed compared to 48% when
dressed as a business executive.
The main criticism of Milgram’s research is that it has many
ethical issues, including deception and no real right to
withdraw. Participants were deceived about the true nature of
the study, believing it to be an experiment about learning.
Also, while the participants were given the right to withdraw
the prods from the experimenter telling them to continue
made it more difficult for them to exercise this right.
Extra practice – Exam questions
1.) Milgram’s work into obedience provided us with valuable insights into why people obey, even though it was
carried out in a laboratory.

Outline two explanations of why people obey.

(Total 4 marks)

2.) Briefly outline and evaluate the authoritarian personality as an explanation of obedience to authority.
(Total 4 marks)

3.) (a) Briefly discuss the Authoritarian Personality as an explanation for obedience to authority.
(4)

(b) Apart from personality type, outline one psychological explanation for defiance of authority.
(2)
(Total 6 marks)

4.) Outline and evaluate one or more explanations of why people obey.
(Total 12 marks)
 Lesson 10 – Resisting Social Influence – Locus of control

Two reasons people can resist pressures of social influence:

1.) ___________________________________________
2.) ___________________________________________

1.) Locus of control

Fill in the boxes and match up the statements with their position on the mine:
Internal Locus of External Locus of
control control

I can determine my future

I can’t make a difference
Things happen to you

Why bother?
I can sometimes determine my
future, it might depend on the
I am in control
I make things happen situation

Apply your knowledge:

Emily and Robert have both just started work at the same company. Emily believes that
if she tries really hard and demonstrates her commitment to the company that she will
be rewarded and be promoted quickly. Dan thinks that promotions are just down to
whether your boss likes you and there isn’t anything you can do to increase your
chances of getting one. When the boss leaves the office, the other workers tend to slack
off and play computer games.
• What locus of control do Emily and Dan have?
• Who is more likely to join their colleagues in playing computer games when the
boss isn’t around? Explain your choice.
Evaluation
Research Studies to support:

Holland (1967)
Study overview: How does this support locus of control Picture to help
as a way of resisting social influence? you remember!

Twenge et al (2004)
Study overview: How does this challenge locus of control Picture to help
as a way of resisting social influence? you remember!

Extra Evaluation:

Strengths of Locus of control ✓ Weaknesses of locus of control 🗴

Lesson 11 – Resisting Social Influence – Social Support
Starter questions:
Three students, George, Petra and Dan, have just started in the sixth form. Dan is a
confident person who thinks that his fate lies firmly in his hands. By the end of the first
week, Dan has put himself forward to be nominated as the class representative. Petra
has also put her name forward to be nominated. She believes it is just luck whether or
not she will be selected and feels that there is not much she can do about it. George did
not put his name forward because his father told him not to.
(a) (i) What type of locus of control does Petra’s behaviour show?

(ii) What type of locus of control does Dan’s behaviour show?

(iii) George did not put his name forward as the class representative. Use your
knowledge of social influence research to explain this.

(4)
(b) Which one of the three students is most likely to resist pressures to conform?
Use your knowledge of psychology to explain your choice.

(4)
(Total 8 marks)
Social Support:
How can social support help people to resist conformity? (Hint: use Asch variations)

How can social support help people to resist obedience? (Hint: use Milgram variations)

Read the following information and answer the questions:

May et al. (2007) carried out a study investigating whether social support could help
people to stop smoking. Their participants were all attending groups to help them quit.
They used questionnaires and interviews to assess the level of social support that their
participants were able to draw upon. Here is one example of a question from their
survey: 'To what extent do you feel you have someone to turn to if you find stopping
smoking is difficult this time?' The researchers also asked about specific supportive
behaviours from people in their social support network, such as whether or not they
would smoke in front of the participant.
They found that social support was a good predictor of abstinence from smoking but only
in the short term. After 26 weeks, whether or not the participants had social support
made little difference. Getting positive support from friends and partners, for example by
being congratulated or praised for giving up, had no impact on longer-term abstinence.
A striking finding, however, was that the best predictor of whether someone would fail to
quit was being offered a cigarette in the first week.
 1. Do you think there are any problems in measuring whether someone has quit
smoking by asking them how many cigarettes they have smoked?

2. What about social support – is asking people if they have social support the best
way of measuring it? What might be a weakness of this method?

3. Do you think that this study demonstrates the power of social support to resist
social influences to smoke? Explain your answer.

4. What other factors might be more important in giving up smoking than social
support?

Extra practice – Exam questions

1.) Explain what is meant by locus of control.

(Total 4 marks)
 Two psychology students were discussing the topic of social
influence.

‘I find it fascinating how some people are able to resist social

influence’, said Jack.
‘It must be the result of having a confident personality.’

‘I disagree’, replied Sarah. ‘I think resisting social influence

depends much more on the presence of others.’

2.) Discuss two explanations of resistance to social influence. As part of your

discussion, refer to the views expressed by Jack and Sarah in the conversation
above.
(Total 16 marks)

Lesson 12 – Minority Influence

Fill in the gaps:
• Refers to situations where one person or a small group of people ______________ the
beliefs and behaviour of other people
• Minority influence is most likely to lead to _____________ – both public behaviour
and private beliefs are changed by the process
• If you hear something new then you might think about it, especially if the source of
this other view is convincing – this leads to deeper processing which is important in
the process of conversion from a majority to a minority viewpoint.
• Over time, more people become ‘converted’ to the minority position, the more this
happens the faster the rate of conversion – the ‘______________’. Gradually the
minority view becomes the majority view and change occurs.
Examples of Minority Influence
Using your own ideas, and the information provided, describe three real life examples of
a minority influence:
1.)

2.)
 3.)

Processes involved in Minority influence

Match up the key terms and their definitions:

Sticking to an argument.
Synchronic consistency – agreement between people in the minority
group ‘they’re all saying the same thing’ Commitment
Diachronic consistency – agreement over time ‘they’ve been saying the same
thing for some time now’

Being extremely consistent can be seen as being rigid. If minority members can
adapt their point of view and accept reasonable and valid counter-arguments they Flexibility
are more successful

When minorities engage in extreme activities which are at some risk to them,
majority group members pay more attention – the augmentation principle Consistency
 Consistancy

Commitment

Flexibility

Lesson 13 – Evaluating Minority Influence

Add a definition for each key word in the table:

Consistency - Flexibility - Augmentation principle -

Internalisation - Commitment - Moscovici -

Synchronic consistency - Snowball effect - Diachronic consistency -

Applying your knowledge of processes in minority influence:

__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________

Evaluating Minority Influence Research:

For each of the headings in the table, write an evaluation paragraph. Use page 33 of the
illuminate book to help you.

Research support for consistency ✓

Research support for depth of thought ✓

Research support for internalisation ✓

Artificial tasks 🗴

Limited real- world application 🗴

Space to plan 16-mark question:

Describe and evaluate research into minority influence. 16 marks.
Extra practice – Exam questions

1.) Explain how a minority can bring about social change.

(Total 4 marks)

2.) Read the item and then answer the question that follows.

A small group of environmentally-aware sixth form students

are campaigning for their school to become ‘paper-free’ for
the next six months. Recently, they had a meeting with a
group of teachers who represent the teaching staff. The
teachers told the students that the school could become
‘paper-free’ if the group of students could convince the rest of
the student body it was a good idea.

Use your knowledge of conformity and minority influence to explain the factors
that will determine how successful the small group of students will be.
(Total 7 marks)

3.) Mike and his grandfather were having a conversation about recycling. Mike explained
that he always puts empty cans and plastic bottles in one box and newspapers and
cardboard in another box and that his mum takes these to be recycled once a week.
His grandfather said that when he was Mike’s age, people did not recycle. Mike said that
everyone in his street recycles and that they have a big box at school especially for
recycling.

Using what you know about minority influence, explain how this change might have
occurred.

(Total 6 marks)
Lesson 14 – The role of social influence in social change
I am the desire to be
Match up the key terms!
right
Milgram
Asch I found young people are
Moscovici more external, but people
Normative social are also less obedient
influence I am how
Zimbardo personality can
Internalisation affect obedience
Dispositional (authoritarian
explanation personality) I am one of the
Agentic state situational factors in
Proximity obedience where the
Location position of the
Twenge et al authority figure and
Compliance I am the desire to be liked
‘victim’ is important
Informational social
influence
Rotter
Nemeth I conducted the
Identification Stanford prison I conducted a study where
Augmentation principle study participants had to guess
Holland the colour of slides
Anticonformity

I am when a person
conforms publicly and I am when people
privately because they conform publicly but
I am when people pay value membership of the maintain their own
attention to those who group. Depends on view privately
have put themselves at presence of group
risk for their cause

I conducted a study where

I proposed the locus of participants thought they
control were administering electric
I am one of the situational shocks
factors affecting obedience,
re. the venue I conducted a
study where
participants had to I am when a person obeying
I found that flexibility complete the blames the authority figure for
was an important unambiguous line any negative consequences of
factor in minority task their actions
I replicated
influence
Milgram and
found more
internal people I am when people consistently oppose the
resisted I am when people norms of the group
conform publicly and
privately
Process of social change:
1.) Drawing attention
__________________________________________________________________________________________
2.) Consistency
__________________________________________________________________________________________
3.) Deeper processing
__________________________________________________________________________________________
4.) Augmentation principle

__________________________________________________________________________________________
5.) Snowball effect
__________________________________________________________________________________________
6.) Social cryptomnesia
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Practice question:
Read the item and then answer the question that follows.

The following article appeared in a newspaper:

Britain’s views on homosexuality – the biggest social change of

the last 30 years?

In the UK, views on homosexuality have changed significantly in recent times.

Thirty years ago, almost two-thirds of the British public opposed same-sex
relationships because they were ‘morally wrong’. These days, homosexuality is
accepted and the majority of British people support recent changes to the laws on
gay marriage and adoption.

With reference to the article above, explain how social influence leads to social change.
(Total 6 marks

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Evaluation
Write a paragraph outlining how effective minority influence is in bringing about social change. Make sure you include
the key ideas from the box!

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Extra practice – Exam questions

1.) Explain how a minority can bring about social change.
(Total 4 marks)

2.) Social influence research helps us to understand how it is possible to change people’s behaviour: for
example, understanding how to persuade people to eat more healthily.

With reference to this example of social change, explain how psychology might affect the economy.
(Total 4 marks)

3.) A small environmental group wants to encourage people to use public transport or bicycles instead of using
their cars.

Using your knowledge of the role of minority influence in social change, what advice would you give the
environmental group?
(Total 6 marks)

4.) Explain how social influence research helps us to understand social change.

(Total 6 marks)