# Conformity and Obedience: The Power of Social Influence

Psychology I · Social Psychology · https://tryals.app/learn/psychology-i/conformity-and-obedience-the-power-of-social-influence

## Bending to the Group

Humans are exquisitely sensitive to social influence. Two classic experiments reveal its staggering power.

**Conformity** is adjusting one's behavior or thinking to match a group standard. In Solomon **Asch's** line-judgment studies, participants gave an obviously wrong answer because confederates did so first.

Conformity is driven by two distinct motives:

| Motive | Description | Why it happens |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Normative influence** | Peer pressure | To be liked and accepted |
| **Informational influence** | Social proof | Assuming the group knows more |

> **Common pitfall:** Confusing conformity with obedience. **Conformity** means yielding to _peers_ (group standards), while **obedience** means following direct orders from an _authority_.

## The Power of Authority

**Obedience** is complying with the direct command of an authority figure. In Stanley **Milgram's** experiments, ordinary participants delivered what they believed were lethal electric shocks simply because an experimenter in a lab coat ordered them to.

Milgram found that compliance scales directly with the power of the figure:

$$\text{obedience} \propto \text{authority proximity and legitimacy}$$

Obedience rose when the authority was close and legitimate, and fell when the victim was near or the authority was distant. Milgram studied obedience to authority, not conformity to a group.

## Practice questions

5 of this lesson's 11 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Each person below yields to social pressure. Decide which kind of influence is actually operating in each case.

**Answer:**

- Normative influence → At a tasting you think the wine is ordinary, but everyone praises it, so you call it excellent while privately unconvinced.
- Informational influence → Lost in an unfamiliar airport, you follow the stream of travellers heading to gate B, assuming they read a screen you missed.
- Obedience → A new nurse is sure the dose written on the chart is too high, but the consultant tells her to administer it, and she does.

**Why:** Only r1 involves a direct command from an authority, so only r1 is obedience. In r2 and r4 the person goes along publicly while privately unconvinced, in order to be accepted - normative influence. In r3 and r5 she genuinely believes the group has information she lacks - informational influence. Note r4: the workplace setting tempts you toward 'obedience', but nobody ordered anything.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/conformity-and-obedience-the-power-of-social-influence/each-person-below-yields-to-social-pressure-decide-which-kind-of

### 2. Rank these four Milgram variations from the HIGHEST level of obedience down to the LOWEST, reasoning from how close the authority and the victim are in each.

**Answer:**

1. Experimenter present in the room; learner unseen and unheard in another room.
2. Experimenter present in the room; learner in the same room, visible and audible.
3. Experimenter present in the room; participant must force the learner's hand onto the shock plate.
4. Experimenter absent from the building, issuing all instructions by telephone.

**Why:** Obedience is highest when the victim is remote and the authority is present, and falls step by step as the victim becomes vivid (seen, then touched). The steepest fall comes when the authority leaves and phones his orders in, because what holds the participant in place is the authority's physical presence - remove that and most of the obedience goes with it.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/conformity-and-obedience-the-power-of-social-influence/rank-these-four-milgram-variations-from-the-highest-level-of

### 3. Select every statement that these studies ACTUALLY demonstrated, as opposed to what is popularly claimed about them.

A. Milgram identified a cruel personality type behind atrocities.
B. Obedience fell sharply when the authority was distant or less official.
C. Milgram's participants were conforming to peers who were also shocking.
D. Asch's participants gave answers they could see were wrong.
E. Ordinary people gave shocks they believed dangerous because an authority told them to.

**Answer:** B. Obedience fell sharply when the authority was distant or less official.; D. Asch's participants gave answers they could see were wrong.; E. Ordinary people gave shocks they believed dangerous because an authority told them to.

**Why:** Milgram showed situational pressure moving ordinary people, and that obedience is sensitive to the authority's proximity and legitimacy; Asch showed people denying the evidence of their own eyes. The two false options are the famous misreadings: that Milgram studied peer conformity, and that his result is about cruel dispositions rather than powerful situations.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/conformity-and-obedience-the-power-of-social-influence/select-every-statement-that-these-studies-actually-demonstrated-as

### 4. Milgram's shock generator rose in **15-volt steps**. A design with one switch marked *"450 volts, dangerous"* would almost certainly have produced far less obedience. Why does the increment matter?

A. Because small increments made participants believe the shocks were harmless
B. Because participants lost count of the total voltage delivered
C. Because each step is barely different from the last
D. Because the gradual rise gave the learner time to adapt, reducing apparent distress

**Answer:** C. Because each step is barely different from the last

**Why:** Gradual commitment removes the line: no step is a decision, and each one makes the next harder to object to without repudiating what you already did. It is foot-in-the-door driving something far darker, and it is why escalation in real institutions rarely presents anyone with a single obvious moment to refuse.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/conformity-and-obedience-the-power-of-social-influence/milgrams-shock-generator-rose-in-15-volt-steps-a-design-with-one

### 5. Milgram's obedience rate fell from 65% to about 21% when the experimenter gave instructions by telephone instead of standing in the room. Why is a change of that size, produced by so small a manipulation, the most important thing the study found?

A. Because it shows the participants were not genuinely obedient and had seen through the deception.
B. Because it shows obedience is a property of the situation.
C. Because it shows telephone instructions are inherently less clear, so participants misunderstood what was required.
D. Because it shows only that Milgram's original 65% figure was a measurement error.

**Answer:** B. Because it shows obedience is a property of the situation.

**Why:** The 65% is quoted as a fact about human nature and the variations show it is a fact about one arrangement: telephone instructions drop it to 21%, a confederate refusing first collapses it to about 10%. A quantity that responsive is measuring the setup, and because it is situational, the variations double as a list of the levers.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/conformity-and-obedience-the-power-of-social-influence/milgrams-obedience-rate-fell-from-65-to-about-21-when-the