Social Influence, Conformity and Authority
Explain conformity, obedience, resistance and minority influence through informational, normative, situational and dispositional processes.
How to study A-level Psychology
For every claim, identify the mechanism, supporting evidence, method, alternative explanation, practical implication and justified conclusion.
Core concepts
Concept 1
Conformity may involve compliance, identification or internalisation and can arise from normative or informational social influence.
Exam cue: Identify the form and mechanism of influence in the scenario.
Concept 2
Obedience reflects interactions among authority, proximity, legitimacy, gradual commitment, social support and individual differences.
Exam cue: Separate situational evidence from a claim that personality never matters.
Concept 3
Minority consistency, commitment, flexibility and social support can produce resistance and social change over time.
Exam cue: Evaluate classic evidence through ethics, control, historical context and replication.
Targeted study blocks
Multi-board knowledge
Secure the shared psychological core
Use social influence as a central shared application of social psychology while recognising that exact classic and contemporary studies differ by specification.
Scientific reasoning
Use evidence before reaching a judgement
Explain the mechanism in context, compare situational and dispositional evidence and qualify generalisation across cultures, periods and tasks.
Risk pitfalls and guardrails
Using conformity and obedience as synonyms.
Guardrail: Do not memorise a study as an isolated story or assume that one board's named research and option choices apply nationally.
Assuming public compliance proves private belief change.
Guardrail: Do not memorise a study as an isolated story or assume that one board's named research and option choices apply nationally.
Explaining social change as an immediate majority conversion.
Guardrail: Do not memorise a study as an isolated story or assume that one board's named research and option choices apply nationally.
Memory anchors
Normative influence
Normative influence changes behaviour to gain approval or avoid rejection.
Informational influence
Informational influence occurs when others are treated as evidence about reality.
Internalisation
Internalisation is a genuine public and private acceptance of a belief or behaviour.
Obedience
Obedience is behaviour produced in response to an order from perceived authority.
Minority influence
Minority influence can create deeper processing through consistency, commitment and flexibility.
Checkpoint rule
Do the check-up only after you can summarize each concept in one sentence and identify one dangerous pitfall from memory.
Knowledge Check (after reading)
Short check-up to confirm understanding of this module.
Check-up Questions
What is compliance?
What is identification?
Answer all questions to submit.
Next step personalized recommendations
Continue learning
Move forward only after this module is stable.
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