4.3 Groups, Social Influence, and Relationships

Influence, roles, and group behavior

Social behavior is shaped by others even with no direct command. The EPPP contrasts four influence processes: conformity is changing behavior or belief to match a group norm; compliance is responding to a direct request; obedience is responding to an authority figure; and persuasion is attitude change through communication. Stems place these in families, teams, institutions, supervision, cults, or therapy groups, and a frequent task is simply to name which process a vignette describes.

Two motives drive conformity: normative influence (to gain acceptance and avoid rejection) and informational influence (to be correct when the situation is ambiguous). Distinguishing the two predicts whether public compliance or genuine private acceptance has occurred, a distinction the exam tests directly.

Classic studies anchor the concepts. Asch's line-judgment conformity studies found about 75% of participants conformed to an obviously wrong majority at least once; conformity rose with unanimity and group size to roughly three or four, and dropped sharply when even one ally dissented. Milgram's obedience studies found about 65% of participants delivered the maximum 450-volt shock under authority; obedience fell when the authority was remote, the victim was close, or peers refused. Sherif's autokinetic studies showed norm formation; Zimbardo's prison study illustrated role power and deindividuation.

Relationships, attachment, and prosocial behavior

Clients may comply outwardly while privately disagreeing, especially under power differences, court involvement, age, culture, disability, or dependency. Informed consent and collaborative planning reduce coercive dynamics. Cohesion helps therapy groups by building belonging and attendance but can also pressure conformity; leaders manage norms, confidentiality, conflict, subgrouping, and scapegoating.

Attachment patterns shape expectations about closeness, support, and autonomy. Ainsworth's Strange Situation classified secure, anxious-ambivalent, and avoidant patterns; Main later added disorganized. Secure attachment generally supports exploration and emotion regulation, but attachment is a hypothesis, not a label that replaces assessment.

Aggression is influenced by frustration (the frustration-aggression hypothesis), modeling (Bandura's Bobo doll studies), reinforcement, substance use, threat appraisal, norms, trauma, and cues such as weapons. Prosocial behavior depends on empathy, perceived responsibility, cost, and norms. The bystander effect (after the Kitty Genovese case) describes reduced helping as observers increase, driven by diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance; Latane and Darley's decision model lists noticing, interpreting as emergency, assuming responsibility, knowing how to help, and acting.

Scenario patterns

Scenario: a clinic team keeps approving a flawed policy because no one wants to challenge a respected director. The best answer names groupthink and recommends inviting dissent, reviewing data, assigning a devil's advocate, and building a safer decision process.

Scenario: an adolescent begins using substances after joining a peer group where use confers status. A strong answer weighs conformity, reinforcement, identity development, and family context, and builds alternative prosocial supports rather than blaming character.

Practice checklist

• Decide whether a stem shows conformity, compliance, obedience, or persuasion.
• Watch for power differences in consent, supervision, family work, and institutions.
• Use group-process concepts to improve safety and participation.
• Weigh role strain, status, norms, and accountability when behavior occurs in teams.
• Treat attachment as a hypothesis to test, not a certainty.

Attraction, relationships, and conflict

The exam also tests interpersonal attraction and relationship science. Attraction is predicted by proximity (the mere-exposure effect, where repeated contact increases liking), physical attractiveness, similarity (we like those who share attitudes), and reciprocal liking.

Social exchange theory frames relationships as cost-benefit ledgers; equity theory predicts distress when contributions and rewards feel unbalanced; and the investment model (Rusbult) explains commitment through satisfaction, quality of alternatives, and investment size, useful in items about why people stay in unsatisfying or even abusive relationships.

Conflict and cooperation appear through the prisoner's dilemma and social-dilemma paradigms, where individual self-interest undermines collective good, and through realistic conflict theory, where competition over scarce resources fuels intergroup hostility. Sherif's Robbers Cave study showed that superordinate goals requiring cooperation reduced hostility, while Allport's contact hypothesis specifies the conditions, equal status, common goals, cooperation, and institutional support, under which intergroup contact reduces prejudice. These map directly onto team conflict, family therapy, and organizational vignettes.

Social-influence items reward systems thinking: behavior is maintained by roles, incentives, norms, power, and expectations, and good practice asks how to change those forces to support safer, healthier behavior.