OxfordAQA IGCSE Psychology: Conformity and Obedience — Revision Notes

Condensed for the final weeks. For the full explanation, use the Conformity and Obedience study guide.

Keep the two phenomena distinct

Conformity — changing behaviour to match a group’s norms, usually without a direct instruction. Obedience — changing behaviour in direct response to an order from an authority figure. Asch is the reference study for conformity; Milgram is the reference study for obedience. A question naming a specific behaviour expects you to identify which phenomenon it is before explaining it.

Asch’s and Milgram’s procedures and key findings

Asch (conformity): line-judgement task — a naive participant sat with a group of confederates and judged aloud which of three comparison lines matched a standard line in length. On critical trials, confederates unanimously gave the same wrong answer before the real participant responded. Key findings: mean conformity of around 37% on critical trials; around 75% of participants conformed at least once; conformity rose sharply as group size increased from one to three opposing confederates, then levelled off.

Milgram (obedience): participants believed they were administering increasingly severe electric shocks to a confederate “learner” who answered incorrectly, under instruction from an experimenter using standard verbal prods; no real shocks were given. Key finding: around 65% obeyed to the maximum voltage, despite visible distress.

Conformity: three social factors, one test each

Factor	Effect
Group size	Conformity increases as majority size grows (up to a point) — a larger unanimous group creates stronger normative pressure
Task difficulty	Ambiguous/difficult tasks reduce confidence in one’s own judgement, increasing reliance on the group
Anonymity	Reduces conformity — being identifiable raises social pressure to publicly agree even when privately disagreeing

Pair each factor with a dispositional factor (e.g. lower self-esteem or higher need for social approval increases conformity) when a question asks for one of each type — this social-plus-dispositional pairing is a frequently tested structure.

Obedience: social vs dispositional, side by side

	Explanation type	Core idea
Agency theory	Social/situational	The agentic state: a person passes moral responsibility to the authority figure, believing themselves an instrument of another’s wishes
Authoritarian Personality (Adorno)	Dispositional	Obedience linked to personality traits, often associated with a strict upbringing

Agency theory’s four elements — agency, authority, culture, proximity — should be learned as a set. Proximity specifically refers to how physically close the person is to the authority figure or to the consequences of their actions; both affect how easily the agentic state is maintained.

The comparison structure examiners look for

A frequent question type asks you to explain one social/situational and one dispositional factor for the same behaviour (conformity or obedience). Structure it as: name the factor, state its type (social/dispositional), explain the mechanism, in that order for each — never blend the two into one undifferentiated paragraph.

Key term precision

• Agentic state — Milgram’s term for seeing oneself as an instrument of another’s wishes, removing personal responsibility.
• Legitimate authority — an authority figure whose right to direct others is socially accepted (a scientist, teacher, police officer), which increases obedience compared to an authority figure without recognised legitimacy.

Precise, exact definitions of these terms — not loose paraphrase — are frequently what separates a mid-band from a top-band answer.

Where this content sits within the wider specification

3.2.2 Social Influence covers four strands overall: conformity, obedience, bystander intervention, and prosocial/antisocial crowd behaviour. These notes focus on the first two, since each carries enough named research and theory to warrant full depth on its own. Bystander intervention (Piliavin; Latane and Darley; Levine) and collective crowd behaviour are revised separately — do not assume these notes’ self-test covers that remaining half of the section.

Exam traps

• Treating conformity and obedience as the same phenomenon.
• Naming Asch or Milgram without describing their actual procedure or a key finding.
• Confusing Agency theory (situational) with the Authoritarian Personality (dispositional) when asked to compare explanation types.
• Listing a factor affecting conformity or obedience without explaining the mechanism behind its effect.
• Giving a vague paraphrase instead of a precise definition for a named term like “agentic state.”

Practising the exact question phrasing

Exam questions on this content tend to use precise verbs — “identify,” “explain,” “describe the procedure of” — and each demands a different depth of response. “Identify” wants a named factor or study with no elaboration; “explain” wants the mechanism behind it; “describe the procedure of” wants the actual method a named study used, not its findings. Practising past-paper questions with attention to the command verb, rather than writing the same depth of answer regardless of what is actually asked, avoids losing marks to under- or over-answering.

Ethical context worth knowing

Milgram’s obedience research is also a standard reference point for discussing research ethics in psychology — deception about the true purpose of the study and the psychological distress caused to participants are frequently raised issues. Being able to briefly note this ethical dimension, where a question invites evaluation of the research itself rather than just its findings, shows a more complete grasp of why this study is treated as a landmark rather than simply naming its result.

Self-test

1. What is the key difference between conformity and obedience?
2. Name the three social factors affecting conformity named in the specification.
3. What are the four elements of Milgram’s Agency theory?
4. How does Agency theory differ from the Authoritarian Personality as an explanation of obedience?
5. Define “agentic state” precisely.

Answers: 1. Conformity is changing behaviour to match group norms, usually without direct instruction; obedience is changing behaviour in direct response to a command from an authority figure. 2. Group size, task difficulty, and anonymity. 3. Agency, authority, culture and proximity. 4. Agency theory is a social/situational explanation (centred on the agentic state and factors like proximity and legitimacy of authority); the Authoritarian Personality is a dispositional explanation based on an individual’s personality traits, often linked to a strict upbringing. 5. The psychological state in which a person sees themselves as an instrument carrying out another person’s wishes, and so no longer feels personally responsible for their actions.

Related resources

• Conformity and Obedience study guide
• Conformity and Obedience practice questions