Social Influence and Group Processes
This domain examines how groups shape behaviour - conformity, obedience, compliance, group performance and conflict - and the classic experiments behind each term.
Groups and why they form
A group has two or more interdependent members, shared norms, roles and some cohesiveness. People join for proximity, similarity, common goals and complementarity of needs.
Conformity and obedience
Asch's line-judgement studies: conformity rises with group size up to a point, collapses with any dissent, and is stronger in public than in private. Obedience in Milgram's studies depended on the legitimacy and proximity of the authority, the proximity of the victim and the presence of disobedient peers.
Compliance
Foot-in-the-door (small request first), door-in-the-face (large request refused, then a smaller one) and low-ball (terms changed after agreement).
Group performance
Social facilitation: performance on simple tasks improves in the presence of others. Social loafing: individual effort drops in larger groups when contributions are not identifiable. Group polarisation shifts decisions towards the group's initial tendency; Janis's groupthink is a drive for unanimity that suppresses dissent - prevented by appointing a devil's advocate, encouraging dissent and inviting outside views.
Conflict and resolution
Sherif's Robbers Cave studies showed that competition over scarce resources creates hostility and that superordinate goals reduce it. Realistic conflict theory and Tajfel's social identity theory both explain intergroup bias; remedies include superordinate goals, negotiation, mediation and arbitration.
Worked example
A committee unanimously approves a risky plan without asking for data. Reasoning: members are not arguing, silent dissenters feel pressured and unanimity is being treated as proof of correctness - that is groupthink, not mere agreement.
Traps
Conformity is yielding to peers; obedience is yielding to authority. Social facilitation is not social loafing. Deindividuation is a loss of self-awareness in a crowd, not a group-judgment effect.