Social Psychology
UNIT 2
Social Psychology Topics:

Social Influence:
1.Types of conformity
-
Internalisation
-
Compliance

1. Explanations of independent behaviour
-
How people resist pressures to conform
-
How people resist pressures to obey
2. Why do people conform?
-
Informational social influence and
normative social influence
-
Outline and evaluate research into
conformity (Asch and Zimbardo)
3. Obedience
-
Outline and evaluate Milgram’s study
-
Two explanations of why people obey
Social Influence in everyday life:
2. Social Change
-
The role of minority influence in social
change
What is social influence?

The process by which an individual’s attitudes, beliefs or behaviours are
changed by the presence or action of others.
What is conformity?

A change in behaviour or belief as a result of real or imagined
group pressure
OR

A tendency for people to adopt the behaviours and attitudes of
other members of a valued group
What social norms do you conform
to?
Personal space – don’t stand
too close to strangers
Social
Norms
Types of conformity

Compliance – publicly conforming to the behaviour or views of others in a
group but privately maintaining one’s own views.

Identification – Adopting the behaviours of a group both publicly and
privately because you value membership of that group. Often temporary
and not maintained when leave that group.

Internalisation – True change both publicly and privately to match those of
the group. The new attitudes become part of their values – not dependent
on presence of group.
Why do people conform?

Normative social influence

Informational social influence

Read the hand-outs and provide your own summary of the two types of
social influence

What type of conformity will these lead to??? (internalisation or
compliance)
Assessment Task 1

Which girl’s behaviour is being influenced by normative social
influence

Which girl’s behaviour is being influenced by informational social
influence?

Justify both choices

(6 marks)
Mark scheme

Josie = Normative Social Influence, changing behaviour but not personal
attitude: she is doing something (laughing at jokes) just to fit in and be
accepted by the group, even though she doesn’t find the jokes funny.

Hana = Informational Social Influence, changing behaviour in order to be
correct and using group as reference: she wants to be right and is using
her colleagues as a source of information.

Caitlyn is not experiencing any social influence.