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Conformity and obedience research matters because it explains two DIFFERENT ways ordinary people change their behaviour under social pressure, and exam questions hinge on telling the two apart. Asch studied conformity, adjusting behaviour or belief to match a PEER group's judgement, even when that judgement is clearly wrong. Milgram studied obedience, complying with a direct instruction from an AUTHORITY figure, even when it conflicts with personal conscience. For example, imagine a participant giving an obviously wrong answer to a simple line-length question simply because several peers before them all gave that same wrong answer, that is conformity, not obedience.

In Asch's line-judgement experiments, a genuine participant sat among several confederates (actors secretly working with the experimenter). These confederates deliberately gave a wrong, unanimous answer to an easy visual question, and roughly a third of genuine participants conformed to it at least once. Normative influence is conforming to be liked or avoid standing out, while informational influence is conforming because you genuinely believe the group knows better than you do. Having just ONE dissenter who gives the correct answer sharply reduces conformity, even if that dissenter's own answer is not perfectly right. In Milgram's obedience experiments, participants were instructed by an authority figure (the experimenter) to deliver what they believed were increasingly severe electric shocks to another person. Obedience was highest when the authority was physically close and seen as legitimate, and it fell sharply when orders came remotely or the victim was in the same room. For example, imagine a nurse who administers a clearly excessive drug dose because a senior doctor insists over the phone, that mirrors Milgram's proximity findings directly. In practice, this means hospital safety systems build in a formal 'challenge and check' step, precisely because Milgram-style obedience to authority persists even against a clinician's own better judgement.

• Asked to judge an ambiguous stimulus with no clear right answer, volunteers gradually converge on the group's estimate and privately keep it. Which process is this?
• In a darkened room, a stationary point of light appears to move, and groups of volunteers converge on a shared estimate of the movement. Whose classic study is this?
• In Milgram's original study, participants were asked to continue to the maximum shock level. Roughly what proportion of participants went all the way to the end?
• In one variation, the participant had to place the learner's hand onto the shock plate rather than simply pressing a switch. What happened to obedience?

• Asch's conformity, bending to match a PEER group's wrong judgement, unlike Milgram's obedience, which is complying with a direct order from an AUTHORITY figure.
• Normative influence, conforming to be liked or avoid standing out, whereas informational influence is conforming because you believe the group is actually correct.
• One dissenter, sharply cuts Asch-style conformity, rather than Milgram-style obedience, which is reduced mainly by physical distance from the authority or proximity to the victim.
• Milgram's obedience, driven by the authority's proximity and perceived legitimacy, unlike Asch's conformity, which is driven by group unanimity and size rather than authority status.

• That process is driven by wanting acceptance rather than seeking accuracy.
• That researcher used unambiguous line-length judgements instead.
• No instruction from an authority figure features in this situation.
• No loss of individual identity in a crowd is described here.
• The volunteers genuinely changed their private judgement here.

• Name the learning, social or research principle being tested before reading the options.
• Identify the antecedent, behaviour, consequence or cognitive process in the vignette.
• Compare the direction of effect with the nearest competing principle.
• Apply the same rule to a new example to confirm that the answer transfers.