A-Level Psychology: Obedience and Resistance

Obedience is the heart of the social influence topic, and exam questions move fast from describing Milgram to explaining, evaluating and applying. This quiz covers the full chain: baseline findings, situational variables, theoretical explanations, dispositional accounts, resistance, and minority influence.

The Milgram questions test the analytically useful facts: why the baseline study produced such high obedience (perceived authority, the prestige of the setting), and which variations reduced it — the shift to a run-down office, orders given by telephone — with each variation tied to the concept it demonstrates. The uniform question makes the visual-symbol-of-authority point explicitly.

The theory questions cover both explanations the specification names: the agentic state, defined precisely as seeing oneself as the instrument of another's wishes with responsibility displaced upward, and legitimacy of authority as the social justification for obeying. The dispositional route gets its own question through Adorno's authoritarian personality — submissiveness to authority paired with hostility to outgroups.

Resistance questions cover social support (the ally who breaks unanimity) and locus of control, tested through the internal-external distinction. Minority influence completes the topic: Moscovici's consistency, commitment and flexibility, and the snowball effect by which a minority position becomes the majority view — how a minority view spreads (the separate social-change point was removed from the AQA specification from September 2025).

Every explanation names the concept doing the work, building the terminology-dense answers A-level mark schemes reward. Together with the Conformity quiz, this completes compulsory social influence coverage.

Explain Milgram's baseline findings and the effect of each situational variable
Define the agentic state and legitimacy of authority precisely
Describe the authoritarian personality as a dispositional explanation
Analyse resistance through social support and locus of control
Apply Moscovici's minority-influence conditions and the snowball effect to social change

Practice material written by Zestly on obedience and resistance, following the AQA A-level Psychology (7182) topic list as an example: Milgram's obedience research and situational variables, agentic state and legitimacy of authority, the authoritarian personality, resistance to social influence, and minority influence.

Sample question

In Milgram's baseline obedience study, what was the primary reason for the high levels of obedience observed in the participants?

Participants were coerced through direct physical threats by the experimenter.
The perceived legitimacy of the authority figure and the setting of Yale University.
The participants were selected specifically for their high levels of authoritarianism.
The participants believed they were contributing to a vital medical breakthrough.

See the answer

The perceived legitimacy of the authority figure and the setting of Yale University.

Milgram argued that the situational context, specifically the prestige of Yale University and the perceived authority of the researcher, created a strong pressure to obey.

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