Social psychology (WACE Year 12 Psychology Unit 4)
“Explain social influence including conformity, obedience, group processes, prosocial and antisocial behaviour, using key studies.”
Social psychology studies how the presence of others changes behaviour: Asch showed conformity to group pressure, Milgram showed obedience to authority, group processes such as deindividuation and groupthink shape decisions, and prosocial helping is reduced by the bystander effect (Latane and Darley) through diffusion of responsibility.
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Social psychology (conformity, obedience, group processes and helping) is not part of the SCSA Psychology ATAR Year 12 syllabus (Units 3 and 4, taught since 2024), so this page is not examined in the WACE Psychology ATAR exam. These topics are now in the Year 11 syllabus (Unit 2: Attitudes, stereotypes and social influence). The nearest Year 12 content on learning from others is observational learning.
What this dot point is asking
This Unit 4 dot point asks you to explain social influence and to use named experiments as evidence.
Conformity (Asch)
Conformity is changing behaviour or beliefs to match a group. Solomon Asch's line-judgement experiments showed that about a third of responses conformed to a clearly wrong group answer, and most participants conformed at least once.
Normative social influence is conforming to be accepted or avoid rejection (going along with the group publicly). Informational social influence is conforming because we believe the group has accurate information, especially in ambiguous situations.
Conformity increases with group size up to about three or four, with unanimity (a single ally sharply reduces conformity), and when responses are public rather than private.
Obedience (Milgram)
Obedience is following the direct orders of an authority figure. Stanley Milgram's experiments asked participants (in the "teacher" role) to deliver what they believed were increasing electric shocks to a "learner". About 65 percent continued to the maximum 450-volt level when prompted by the experimenter.
Milgram explained high obedience through the agentic state, where people see themselves as agents carrying out an authority's wishes rather than as personally responsible. Obedience fell when the authority was less legitimate, more distant, or when the participant saw others refuse.
Milgram's variations showed obedience dropped when the experimenter gave orders by telephone, when the study was run in a run-down office rather than at a prestigious university, and when the participant had to physically place the learner's hand on a plate (proximity).
Group processes
- Deindividuation: the loss of self-awareness and personal responsibility in a group, which can increase antisocial behaviour (relevant to Zimbardo's Stanford prison study).
- Groupthink (Janis): the drive for consensus in cohesive groups can suppress dissent and lead to poor decisions.
- Group polarisation: group discussion tends to strengthen the average pre-existing view, making decisions more extreme.
- Social loafing: individuals exert less effort in a group than alone when individual contributions are not identifiable.
Prosocial and antisocial behaviour
Prosocial behaviour benefits others. Altruism is helping at a cost to oneself with no expectation of reward.
The bystander effect, investigated by Latane and Darley after the Kitty Genovese case, is the finding that people are less likely to help when others are present. Two mechanisms explain it:
- Diffusion of responsibility: each bystander assumes someone else will act, so responsibility is shared and diluted.
- Pluralistic ignorance: people look to others for cues, and if no one reacts, each concludes there is no emergency.
A person collapses in a crowded train station and no one helps for several minutes. Diffusion of responsibility means each commuter assumes another will call for help, and pluralistic ignorance means everyone reads everyone else's inaction as a sign the situation is not serious. The remedy supported by research is to single out one person and give a direct instruction, which removes the diffusion. Naming Latane and Darley and both mechanisms scores full marks.
Antisocial behaviour harms or disregards others; it can be promoted by deindividuation, dehumanisation and obedience to harmful authority.
Conformity is yielding to peer or group pressure (often implicit and from equals), whereas obedience is following a direct order from an authority figure. Asch studied conformity; Milgram studied obedience. Also, the bystander effect is reduced helping when others are present, not simply general apathy, so always name diffusion of responsibility.
In the exam, match the named study to the concept and quote the headline figure (Asch's one-third, Milgram's 65 percent) to anchor your explanation.
Exam-style questions
Questions in the style of SCSA exam questions on this dot point, each with a worked answer. They are written by ExamExplained unless tagged "Past paper"; the year shows the paper a question is modelled on.
Original6 marksDistinguish between conformity and obedience, and for each name a key study and its headline finding.Show worked answer →
A 6 mark response needs the distinction plus a study and finding for each.
Conformity. Yielding to real or imagined pressure from peers of equal status, often implicit. Study: Asch's line-judgement experiment, in which about a third of critical responses conformed to a clearly wrong majority and most participants conformed at least once.
Obedience. Following a direct order from an authority figure within a hierarchy. Study: Milgram's shock experiment, in which about 65 percent of participants continued to the maximum 450 volts when ordered by the experimenter.
Markers reward the peers-versus-authority distinction and a correctly matched study and headline figure for each.
Original8 marksExplain how the presence of others can either increase or decrease helping and effort, referring to social facilitation, social loafing and the bystander effect with relevant research.Show worked answer →
An 8 mark extended response needs the three effects explained with evidence.
- Social facilitation
- The presence of others improves performance on simple or well-learned tasks because arousal boosts the dominant response, but can impair performance on difficult tasks.
- Social loafing
- People exert less individual effort in a group than alone when their contributions are not identifiable, because of diffusion of responsibility.
- Bystander effect
- People are less likely to help as the number of bystanders increases. Latane and Darley showed participants who believed they were the only witness to a staged emergency helped more often and faster than those who believed others were present, through diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance.
- Conclusion
- Markers reward correctly distinguishing the three effects, linking loafing and the bystander effect to diffusion of responsibility, and citing Latane and Darley.