A-Level Psychology: Conformity

Conformity opens Paper 1 of A-Level Psychology, and its questions demand precision: not just naming Asch, but knowing exactly which variable moved conformity in which direction, and why. This quiz drills that precision across the whole compulsory topic.

The definitional questions separate the three types of conformity — internalisation as genuine, persistent private change; identification as conformity tied to valued group membership; compliance as public agreement over private disagreement — a three-way distinction exam questions love to test through scenarios. The two explanations get the same treatment: informational social influence driven by the need to be right in ambiguous situations, and normative social influence driven by the need for approval, tested both directly and through application scenarios that make you diagnose which is operating.

The Asch questions cover the research machinery: what unanimity meant in the procedure, and how group size, the presence of a dissenter and task difficulty each changed conformity rates — with task difficulty linked back to informational influence, the connection that earns analysis marks.

Zimbardo's Stanford prison study is examined for what it claims — the power of assigned social roles to override individual personality — and, crucially, for its limitations: a multi-select question requires you to identify the recognised criticisms (demand characteristics, ethics, methodology), because evaluation is where A-level marks concentrate.

Every question is scenario-based or conceptually precise rather than trivia-shaped, and each explanation names the mechanism at work. The set pairs with the Obedience and Resistance quiz to complete social influence, the first compulsory topic of the specification.

• Distinguish internalisation, identification and compliance through applied scenarios
• Diagnose informational vs normative social influence in context
• Recall Asch's variables (group size, unanimity, task difficulty) and their effects
• Explain Zimbardo's conformity-to-social-roles claim
• Evaluate Zimbardo's study using the recognised methodological and ethical criticisms

Covers the compulsory Social Influence content of A-level Psychology (common to the current specification): types and explanations of conformity, Asch's research and its variables, and conformity to social roles as investigated by Zimbardo.