Social Influence

Conformity:

Types of conformity (Kelman 1958):

●      Compliance:

○      Superficial, behaviour is adopted to receive approval or avoid disapproval from those around you because fitting in is seen as desirable 

○      Doesn’t change someone’s underlying attitude, just the public behaviours

○      E.g. Sam agrees the film was excellent even though he didn’t enjoy it

●      Identification:

○      Mid-level, individual adopts a behaviour publicly so they are associated with a group, adopting their behaviour to feel like part of it

○      Beliefs may be temporary and change when that person enters a new environment

○      E.g. someone smokes because that’s what the “cool” kids are doing but doesn’t smoke when they’ve left school because that’s not what the cool people do

●      Internalisation:

○      Deepest, individual accepts influence because the attitude/behaviour is consistent with their own value system

○      They believe they are wrong and the group is right so their view is accepted publicly and privately

○      E.g. Ollie is a vegetarian at uni whilst sharing a flat with animal activists, and when he goes home for Christmas he won’t eat meat

Explanations for Conformity (Deutsch & Gerard 1955 Dual-Process Model):

●      Informational Social Influence:

○      Accept information from others as truth – initially, we check the facts but if that’s not possible we rely on the opinions of others

○      Likely if the situation is ambiguous or where others are experts

○      Example of internalisation (public and private attitudes are changed)

●      Normative Social Influence:

○      Going along with the majority without accepting their viewpoint (compliance)

○      People aim to gain approval, avoid disapproval or achieve specific goals

○      Must believe they are under surveillance by the group to conform

●      Evaluation:

○      Positives: Asch (1951) supports the model; participants estimate which of 3 lines was the same length as standard and ppts willing to give incorrect answers 36.8% time, even when they admitted they knew it was wrong. 75% of ppts gave wrong answers and conformed at least once, not wanting to stand out. Normative + Compliance. Evidence supporting the NSI argues for the DPM.

○      Negative: Too simplistic as McGhee & Teevan (1967) showed people were less resistant to NSI called nAffiliators (more interested in forming relationships and fitting in). NSI doesn’t affect everyone equally and as the model doesn’t account for this, it should be viewed cautiously.

○      Positive: But it shouldn’t be discounted due to RLA. Linkenbach & Perkins (2003) adolescents exposed to stats showing the majority of their age don’t smoke, were less likely to take up smoking themselves. If used in schools, could have a huge health impact discouraging smoking/drug use. Prompts conformity to social norms, so NSI has a positive impact, presumably no effect if not a sound model.

Asch (1956): *

●      123 male undergraduates in Lab experiment, repeated measures

●      Which of 3 lines is the same length as the standard line, with only one real ppt (answered second to last) the rest were Confederates

●      On 12 of 18 trials (critical trials) confederates all gave the same wrong answer; also a control experiment without the distraction of Confederates

●      Critical trials, av. conformity = 33% 

●      75% conformed at least once, 50% on 6 or more trials, 25% never conformed and 5% in all trials (ppts said they trusted their own perception but conformed to avoid disapproval)

●      In control ppts made errors 1% of the time

●      Positive: Operationalised (second to last) so cause & effect

●      Negative: Often greater conformity with friends, artificial because stimulus was unambiguous but real life is often ambiguous

●      Negative: Historical bias – McCarthyism (people had a fear of standing out in the 50s)

Variables affecting conformity as investigated by Asch: 

●      Group size:

○      Size ranged from 1-15 in a group 

○      Conformity was very low when 1 confederate to 1 ppt (3%)

○      2 C to 1 ppt = 13%

○      3C to 1 ppt = 33% and didn’t rise much above this (3-5 max)

○      Campbell & Fairey (1989) – group size has different effects depending on the type of task; preferences: more people, more conformity. When a task has a correct answer, the views of a few people are enough.

●      Task difficulty:

○      Difference between lengths was smaller so the task was harder (conformity increased)

○      Informational social influence, we trust other’s opinions to be fact due to ambiguity

○      Lucas et al (2006) – high self-efficacy participants were less likely to conform even to hard maths problems so situational factors (difficulty) and individual factors (self-efficacy) are both important.

●      Unanimity:

○      When a confederate gave the correct answer (“dissenter”), conformity dropped from 33% to 5.5%

○      When the dissenter gave a different, wrong answer conformity fell to 9% showing that unanimity reduces conformity

●      Evaluation:

○      Negative: Ashe’s findings may have been due to McCarthyism, therefore suffering from historical bias. People had a fear of standing out so conformity in the 50s in America was likely higher than at any other time.

○      Positive: Mori & Arai (2010) it would have been hard for confederates to act convincingly when giving the wrong answer, reducing the validity. However M&A overcame this by giving ppts polarising glasses (3 ppts wore same glasses and another ppt wore different ones). Females showed similar levels of conformity to Asch, but not men. Shows overall the confederates in Asch’s study did act convincingly.

○      Smith et al (2006) analysed Ashe type studies over different cultures. Av. conformity = 31.2% but individualist cultures was 25% and collectivist cultures was 37%. 

Conformity to Social Roles (Zimbardo/Haney 1973):

The Stanford Prison Experiment (lab, independent groups):

●      75 men responded to a questionnaire (psychometric testing) and 24 most stable participants were chosen. Randomly allocated guards and prisoners; guards worked in shifts and asked to maintain order, but were not told how to behave (no aggression allowed)

●      Guards had a uniform and a wooden stick, whereas prisoners were given a loose fitting muslin cloth, stocking cap and no underwear (reduce individuality). Prisoners (only called by their number) are arrested at home and then placed in detention cells and read rules by the warden (Zimbardo)

●      Interaction between the two became hostile, insulting and dehumanising – guards made verbal commands and prisoners took a passive response.

●      The study ended after 6 days rather than 14 after 5 prisoners were released early with extreme depression. Prisoners were pleased, whereas guards were distressed

●      Conclusions: People internalised their role (situational factors had a greater role than dispositional) – pathology of power.

●      Prisoners suffered from pathological prisoner syndrome: at first they rebelled but due to being undermined by the guards, and solidarity collapsed

○      Loss of personal identity; number, clothes

○      Arbitrary control exercised by the guards; post-experimental questionnaire showed prisoners didn’t like how they were subjected to uncertainty and changeable decisions (showed learned helplessness)

○      Dependency and emasculation; dependent on the guards to go to the toilet, had no underwear, and even asked in the debrief if they were prisoners because they were smaller than the guards even though there was no height difference

Evaluation:

●      Negative: Aim was too obvious causing demand characteristics, rather than situational factors. Reicher & Haslam (2006) BBC prison study found guards were less willing to impose authority. So initial study isn’t replicable. They drew on Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory to suggest the cohesion of prisoners and how they view themselves has a greater influence than conformity to social roles.

●      Positive: Zimbardo argued that differences between the studies explain the results, not issues with the initial study. In 1973, the participants had hidden cameras, whereas in 2006, all participants had microphones and knew they were being filmed for national TV, so they weren’t as brutal. The results in 1973 may have been due to situational factors, after all.

●      Negative: To resolve this, exact replications of 1973 would be required however the study had many ethical issues, despite staying within the uni’s ethical parameters. Many prisoners had breakdowns, inc. a psychosomatic skin rash due to not being allowed to leave (removed right to withdraw). The stress it caused meant it could not be replicated.

Situational Variables Affecting Obedience: *

Milgram (1963): 

●      Investigated how far someone would go in obeying an instruction if it harmed someone else (such as in WW2)

●      40 males paid $4.50 for turning up all introduced to another participant, actually a confederate, drawing straws to see who would be the ‘teacher’ and who’d be the ‘learner’ – fixed so confederate always the learner

●      The teacher was told to administer an electric shock when the learner made a mistake, increasing the level of shock each time. There were 30 switches on the shock generator marked from 15 volts (slight shock) to 450 (danger – severe shock)

● The learner mostly gave wrong answers and the teacher gave orders to continue shocks

●      65% continued to 450V and all continued to 300V

●      Carried out 18 variations of the study, changing the situation to see how it affected obedience

●      Conclusion: people are likely to follow authority as it is instilled in us from a young age

Situational Factors:

1)    Proximity:

➔    The physical distance between the experimenter and the teacher or the teacher and the learner

➔    Teacher and learner in the same room – obedience dropped to 40% 

➔    Experimenter ordering teacher by phone – many resisted and only 20% went to 450V

➔    Touch proximity (for the learner to be shocked, had to place a hand on shock plate voluntarily or teacher had to force hand) – 30% continued to 450V

➔    When closer to the learner, teachers couldn’t detach themselves from the consequences of their actions so obedience lower

➔    War: obeying an order to press a button to launch a missile to kill thousands of people, whereas when shooting someone, following orders becomes harder because you can see the consequences

2)    Location:

➔    Conducted in a lab at Yale; many participants said the location gave them confidence in the integrity of the people involved so wouldn’t have shocked the learner if it was carried out elsewhere

➔    Milgram moved study to a rundown office with no affiliations to Yale – obedience dropped (to 48% going to 450V) 

➔    Could still be suggested that the high status of Yale affected obedience (more authoritative figures assumed to be at Yale)

3)    Uniform:

➔    Milgram made experimenters wear lab coats in some conditions to establish authority, increasing obedience 

➔    Bickman (1974) told participants to pick up litter or to lend money to a stranger for parking – 92% conformed (uniform) and 49% (street clothes) 

➔    Bushman (1988) used this method with female confederates. Found that 70% (uniform) and 52% (beggar’s clothes)

Evaluation:

●      Positive: Other research supports findings: Slater used a text to administer shock (increased obedience), Bickman told strangers to pick up litter (92% conformed in uniform and 49% when not), Bushman used female confederates (70% complied in uniform, 52% in beggars clothes)

●      Not gender biased as suggested: Eagly said women obey more to men. Milgram, even though most research on men, found the same obedience for both. Blass studied 9 replications and 8 found no difference in gender

●      Negative: Lack internal validity: Orne & Holland said ppts didn’t believe shocks were real and said the trembling/stuttering which Milgram said was evidence for it being real, were demand characteristics. Perry said ppts were sceptical and research assistant divided ppts into doubters and believers (more likely to obey)

●      Mandel said findings from Reserve Police Battalion where close proximity didn’t reduce obedience showed findings can’t be generalised

Positive: However Hofling et al found 21/22 nurses obeyed phone calls from fictional Dr to prescribe fictional drugs even though it broke hospital rules (so can potentially be generalised)

Ethics:

Negatives:

●      Diana Baumrind (1964) criticised Milgram for lack of concern for participants (ppts) welfare

●      Deceived ppts by telling them it was an experiment on the effects of punishment on learning (couldn’t give informed consent)

●      Questions about whether ppts were really offered the right to withdraw when the prods from the experimenter “you have no choice but to continue” 

●      Possibly caused harm to ppts if they believed they were injuring/killing another person: trembling, laughing nervously and 3 participants had uncontrollable seizures, with many pleading to stop the experiment.

●      Could have been done ethically: Burger (2009) set shock at 150V so ppts didn’t believe they caused as much harm and found very similar results to Milgram (28 out of 40 gave shock at 150V) – unnecessarily unethical

Positives:

●      Argued he tried to gain presumptive consent by asking the psychological community to predict the findings, most suggested that very few would go to 450V so the experiment should go ahead

●      Argued that ppts had the option to accept or reject authority and could withdraw, even though it was difficult (35% did withdraw before 450V)

●      Participants were given a debrief, told the shocks weren’t real and reintroduced to the learner. Obedient ppts were told their behaviour was normal and many others also obeyed and disobedient told their behaviour was desirable, so no one felt bad about their actions

●      Ppts visited after a year by a psychiatrist who found no evidence of harm

●      Milgram sent out a survey and 84% were glad they participated, and only 1.3% were sorry to have taken part

●      No other way to study obedience (due to participant variables) so need that research to understand why people acted the way they did in the holocaust.

Agentic state & legitimacy of authority:

Agentic State:

●      Individuals see themselves as a subordinate (an agent) of another person, carrying out their orders without taking personal responsibility for their actions. 

●      Moved from an autonomous state, where they see themselves as responsible for their actions, to the agentic state, known as the agentic shift in response to viewing someone as an authoritative figure, higher than them in the social hierarchy. 

●      People adopt an agentic state to protect their self-image from their actions, as they are not their responsibility, so they will not feel guilty. 

●      They then stay due to binding factors, such as people wanting to avoid appearing rude to their superior, whom they are taking orders from, due to social etiquette.

Legitimacy of Authority:

●      More likely to obey someone of a higher status in a position of social hierarchy. 

●      Legitimacy of authority refers to the amount of social power held by the person who gives the orders. 

●      When someone has legitimate authority, we accept that they have the right to tell us what to do and we will receive consequences if we do not obey. 

●      If someone does disobey, it doesn’t mean the authority figure has less legitimacy of authority and we do not have to obey.

●      If an order is given which may harm someone, then for it to be seen as legitimate it must happen within an institutional structure (e.g. military). The category of an institution (e.g. a lab) causes an individual to obey, rather than its rank within the category (e.g. Harvard lab). 

Evaluation:

Positives:

●      Great explanatory power of historic atrocities, e.g. the Holocaus/My Lai massacre. Either generals seen as legitimate authority who had the right to tell them what to do or viewed as superior so acted as agents (guilt free). 

Negatives:

●      Must be viewed alongside Milgram’s situational explanation (not a stand-alone explanation). Need the variables for someone to be viewed as an authority figure (see lab coat variation – either see those in coats as higher status who they should be agents to/legitimate authority who had the right to ask them to shock the learner. 

●    This is an incomplete explanation as it doesn’t account for dispositional factors. Adorno et al. found the authoritarian personality; strict parents made them more inclined to unquestioningly obey. Damburn & Vatine investigated this in a virtual version of Milgram’s study, finding a correlation between high RWA score and high maximum voltage.

Dispositional – Authoritarian personality:

●      The Authoritarian Personality is a psychodynamic explanation, developed by Adorno et al (1950), that ascribes high levels of obedience to dispositional factors. 

●      They stated that extreme obedience lies in people’s childhoods, with particularly strict parents, where they internalised the social norm that orders will be met with unquestioning obedience or harsh punishment due to their own experiences as children.

●      To receive their parents’ love they need to obey commands or they’ll be punished, developing hostile and angry feelings towards their parents. 

●      These feelings are repressed, becoming unacknowledged driving forces for extreme respect for people who are ‘strong’ and contempt for the ‘weak’ as adults

●      When given an order from legitimate authority to harm the ‘weak’ they do not see any significant hesitation.

●      Really the hostility is their own repressed anger for their parents, displaced onto the weak.

●      Fromm (1941) – proposed people’s personalities play a role in whether they obey unquestioningly. He aimed to identify characteristics which were right-wing and conservative, finding that they tended to be submissive to authority figures and believed in the domination of minorities/absolute obedience.

Evaluation:

Positives:

●      Evidence that those with AP are more likely to obey. Adorno et al (1950) support his theory. Adorno’s ‘F-scale questionnaire’ drew on a sample of over 2000 people to find strong positive correlations between the authoritarian personality, judging people for being strong or weak and social standing as important – all factors which increase obedience.

●      Other supportive evidence, e.g. from Milgram (he felt situ were more important) who found correlations between AP & obedience. Milgram & Elms found obedient ppts described fathers more negatively than disobedient ppts. However, there is also contradictory evidence of this theory as Milgram & Elms only found evidence of some of the aspects Adorno suggested, and some evidence which went against key aspects, for example, some of the most obedient participants reported very close, loving relationships with their parents

Negatives:

●      Milgram’s situational variables contradict dispositional explanation. 65% seems very high if they all had AP and the same applies to real life (would that many Germans have AP in WW2?). Not the case for situational variation studies, suggesting that situational factors are more important, or presumably changes in the situation would not change dispositional obedience.

Resistance to Social Influence:

Social support: 

●      Remaining independent to the situational, external presence of social support

●      Have allies also refusing to go along with the crowd/authority 

●      Breaks the unanimity of the majority position and reaffirms individual’s own confidence in their judgement

●      An ally supporting the dissenting answer, makes it harder to doubt one’s own perception so refusing to go along with the crowd is easier

●      With obedience, disobedient allies alters the perception that obeying harmful commands is the right thing to do

●      In both cases, allies act as role models who people can follow and reject the pressure of social influence

Gamson et al (1982): 

●      Understand whether ppts would rebel in situation with unjust authority

●      Opportunity sample, controlled observation

●      Took part in a group discussion with fictional human relations company (MHRC) who were taking legal action against petrol station manager who they’d sacked for speaking out about high petrol prices 

●      Filmed discussion, MHRC obviously wanted ppts to argue in favour of sacking, stopping the filming occasionally to instruct members to. Asked to consent to the film being used in court

●      32/33 rebelled in some way, 25 to it being used in court. Established group identity agreeing the authority demands were unreasonable 

●      Rebellion challenged the norm of obedience and commitment. May have been influenced by the serious consequences of lying in court as well as group support. 

●      Positives: High levels of realism (ppts not aware it was a study so no DC)

●      Negative: Observation not experiment so no cause and effect between group presence and disobedience.

Locus of control: Rotter (1966)

●      Internal, dispositional factor 

●      Some people can resist when others can’t in the same situation because they have the characteristic of a high internal LoC

●      Focus on internality: in charge of their choices so feel more responsible for the outcomes than those focused on externality

●      They’re authors of their own destiny so not swayed by opinions of others and their accountability makes them more resistant to entering an agentic state (less likely to follow an unjust command)

●      High external LoC: events in life are due to the actions of others or chance so feel less responsible (more prone to conform to opinions of others)

Evaluation:

●      Evidence to strengthen: 

○      Asch (1956) variation with a dissenting ally (conformity dropped from 31.8% to 5.5%) and Allen & Levine confirmed effect – when confederate resisted incorrect majority answer conformity decreased sharply, even when it was invalid social support (thick glasses undermining chance they were correct)

○      Milgram variation with dissenter dropped from 65% to 10% going to 450V when ppt part of a 3 person team where 2 confederates refused to give higher shocks 

●      Could be said the studies are artificial (negative), but Gamson et al. did a controlled observation into resistance to obedience: 25/33 groups disobeyed a misleading video being used in a trial. Unaware they were in a study so no demand characteristics. The conformity to the social identity the groups formed for themselves allowed them to resist the social influence to obey. 

●      Milgram & Elms investigated LoC on ppts in the first 4 of Milgram’s studies, found that disobedient ppts had a higher internal LoC than obedient (expected if Rotter is correct). Oliver & Oliver found real life findings reflecting the same tend in non-Jewish Germans who lived through the Holocaust. Those protecting the Jews had higher internal LoC.

●      Negative: Not so easily seen with conformity: externals are more likely than internal to succumb to normative SI. But informational SI is the same for both (Spector) because both have a desire to be right, whereas externals have a desire to be accepted by others. Can’t overstate the importance of LoC.

Minority Influence:

Where people understand why a minority holds a position and convert to this position which is deeper and longer lasting than majority influence. Most likely to lead to internalisation. For conversion, the minority must be consistent, committed and flexible. People convert faster as more people convert (the snowball effect).

●      Consistency: Initially we assume the minority is wrong so being consistent makes us reassess the situation and consider it more carefully. Wood et al’s meta-analysis of 97 studies of MI found consistency made minorities more influential (as seen in Moscovici’s study). Can be consistent in a group (synchronic) or across time (diachronic).

●      Commitment: Suggests certainty, confidence and courage in a hostile majority. Costs an individual more to go with a minority than to stay with a majority so commitment is normally higher. The commitment may persuade a majority to take the minority seriously/convert – the augmentation principle. 

●      Flexibility: More important in changing majority opinion than the rigidity of an  argument (Mugny 1982). Minorities are less powerful so need to negotiate their position with the majority rather than enforce it. Too flexible, however, may be seen as inconsistent. 

Moscovici et al. (1969):

Procedure: 

●      Each group had 4 naïve ppts and a minority of 2 confederates

●      Shown blue slides that varied in intensity and asked to judge the colour

●      ‘Consistent’ condition – the 2 confederates called the blue sides green on every trial 

●      ‘Inconsistent’ condition – confederates called the slides green on two-thirds of the trials (other third they called them blue)

●      Control – 6 naïve ppts and no confederates (called blue throughout)

Findings:

●      Minority influenced ppts to say green on over 8% of the trials 

●      Inconsistent (1.25%)  barely differed from the control group

●      After the main study, ppts asked to individually sort 16 discs into blue or green. 3 discs were unambiguously blue and 3 unambiguously green; remaining 10 were ambiguous so ppts had to establish a threshold between the 2

●      Those in consistent condition judged more of their discs to be green than the inconsistent condition 

●      Effect even greater for those who hadn’t gone along with majority in the experiment, so the initial influence was more private than public

Evaluation:

●      Negative: Generalisability may be questioned as we are unlikely to be asked to do a colour perception task in our life and there was little consequence of conforming (not meaningful), thus lacking ecological validity. Not analogous to real life as it was a controlled laboratory experiment. Participants aren’t ‘real groups’, they’re a collection of students who do not know each other and will probably never meet again (Sampson).

●      Negative: lso Moscovici was gynocentric – a sample consisting only of women. We cannot conclude that male participants would respond to minority influence in the same way. Research suggests that females are more likely to listen to men and be more accepting so more research is required to determine the effect of minority influence on male participants.

●      Positive: Can be seen in everyday life: more realistic research in an everyday setting has been conducted. Juries have 12 people deciding whether someone is innocent/guilty and there is often disagreement (forms majority and a minority. May be unethical to study real-life juries so studies form mock juries. E.g. Clark’s (1999) study is based on the film 12 Angry Men where one juror believes the defendant is innocent of murder and tries to convince the other 11 jurors (ppts). Ppts had a 4-page book of evidence suggesting he was guilty and varied whether ppts were given info about the defence and arguments supporting innocence. The minority juror convinced people, only when they could provide arguments against the evidence for guilt. 

●      Seen in real life – suffragettes, now girls can be educated 

Social Change:

Social change refers to views in society moving from one state to another: for example, how views on gay marriage have changed in the UK over the last few decades.

The role of social influence processes refers to the impact of the pressure people are bringing to bear on each other about such matters which helps create that change!

Through minority influence: start

It’s a process of conversion (Moscovici said it was a conversion) leading to internalisation. 

1. Drawing attention to the issue
   1. Minorities create conflict with the majority due to different views, e.g. suffragettes used educational, political and militant tactics 
2. Cognitive conflict (cognitive dissonance)
   1. Majority groups think deeply about issues challenged e.g. suffragettes: conflict between the status that only men could vote and advocating votes for women. As a result, some people moved towards suffragettes
3. Consistency of position
   1. Suffragettes remained strong in their view (it didn’t change) 
4. Augmentation principle
   1. The minority is suffering (suffragettes willing to starve) for their view so they’re seen as committed and are taken more seriously by others 
   2. They still comply with the majority but are affected internally by the minority.
5. The snowball effect (Van Avermaet, 1996)
   1. Initially a small effect but spreads more widely as more people consider the issue, eventually reaching the tipping point where social change occurs – all adult citizens have the right to vote 
   2. Tipping point (around 10%) 
   3. Over time zeitgeist (spirit of the age) changes, and behaviours increasingly match beliefs (fewer people laugh at racist jokes until no one laughs) until the minority becomes the majority
   4. People don’t remember they held the old majority position – social cryptomnesia (Perez et al)
   5. Influence is more effective when the majority group are part of an ‘in-group’ e.g. Martin Luther King got white people on his side 

Through majority influence (conformity): 

●      Behavioural choices are the subject of normative influence (compliance)

●      Some people act due to informational influence (internalisation) because they still want to be right and what is right has changed 

●      Social norms approach (Perkins & Berkowitz, 1986) people alter behaviour to fit the norm e.g. at uni students think heavy drinking is the norm so drink more 

●      Gap between perceived norm and actual norm = misperception 

●      Correcting misperception is basis of social norms intervention

●      Social norms interventions:

○      Identify a widespread misperception of a risky behaviour in a target population

○      Perception correction strategies such as media campaigns to communicate the actual norm

○      They still conform, but to a less risky behaviour

○      E.g. “Most of us don’t drink and drive” campaign to stop 21-34 yr olds drink driving (had a high number of crashes in Montana), only 20.4% said they had driven after 2+ drinks but 92% said they thought their peers had so correcting the misconception reduced the reported drink driving to 13.7%.

Through obedience:

●      Places further pressure on those who do not agree e.g. illegal not to employ someone just because of their race 

Evaluation:

Positives:

●      Evidence the minority can affect majority view: 

○      Moscovici et al – consistent minority can influence a larger group (8.42% ppts agreed with minority)

○      Nemeth et al – reasonable minority has greater effect

○      Xie et al – tipping point of 10% minority leads to conversion (followed by snowball effect)

●      Majority impacts minority view:

○      Jenness – people conform to the norm with an ambiguous stimulus (informational influence)

○      Asch – 31.8% conform with unambiguous stimulus 

Negatives:

●      All limited by the artificiality of tasks:

○      Noting colour of slides/counting beans in a jar/comparing limes – not important, relevant or life-changing so they lack ecological validity

○      Can’t always get people to change their view if they hold strong views already 

Further Positives:

●      But there are real life examples of minority and majority influence causing change, so is generalisable:

○      Women’s, black, gay civil rights and environmental movements

○      That isn’t due to majority influence and obedience maintaining status quo – they’re changing due to minority influence, then majority, then obedience 

●      There are also real life applications:

○      Social norms interventions e.g. most people don’t drink and drive campaign 

○      If social influence wasn’t changing the majority view, then these interventions would not be effective. As 20.4% fell to 13.7%, we can conclude that social influence is changing the majority view.

Overall, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that social influence does cause social change. Whilst this research has been criticised, ultimately it can be concluded that social change is occurring due to social influence, or presumably it would not be seen or able to be applied to real-life contexts.