Free MCAT-style practice, 7B
MCAT Conformity, Obedience and Group Behavior Practice Questions
Ten free MCAT-style practice questions on Asch conformity, Milgram obedience, social facilitation and loafing, the bystander effect, polarization and groupthink, with full explanations.
Quick concept primer
The presence of others changes behavior in predictable ways. When individual performance is visible, Zajonc's account of social facilitation says the arousal from others strengthens the dominant response, which helps on easy or well-practiced tasks and hurts on hard or new ones. When output is pooled and individual effort cannot be identified, people tend to exert less effort, which is social loafing. Anonymity inside a group can produce deindividuation, a loss of self-awareness that lets situational cues drive behavior. In emergencies, more bystanders often means slower help, partly through diffusion of responsibility.
Social influence comes in several forms. Asch showed that people sometimes go along with a unanimous group on a clear perceptual judgment, mostly through normative influence, the wish to fit in. Sherif's ambiguous light task showed informational influence, where people use others as evidence. Milgram showed obedience to an authority's commands, which falls as the victim becomes closer or as peers refuse. Discussion can push a group to a more extreme version of its starting view (group polarization), and pressure for unanimity can produce the faulty decisions Janis called groupthink.
Traps: conformity follows peers, obedience follows an authority. Social facilitation does not mean an audience always helps, and groupthink is not the same as polarization.
10 practice questions
Question 1
A researcher runs a hypothetical line-judgment experiment in which six confederates give an obviously wrong answer on critical trials. The share of critical trials on which the real participant went along with the majority was recorded in four versions.
| Version | Participant agreed with the wrong majority |
|---|---|
| All six confederates unanimous | 33 percent |
| One confederate gives the correct answer throughout | 6 percent |
| One confederate gives a different wrong answer throughout | 9 percent |
| One confederate gives the correct answer, then switches to the majority halfway | 28 percent |
Which conclusion is best supported by these data?
- Conformity falls only when a dissenter gives the correct answer.
- Dissenters have little effect, because the majority is still large.
- A dissenter raises conformity by adding social pressure.
- Any break in unanimity lowers conformity, but the effect fades if the dissenter later joins the majority.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. Any break in unanimity lowers conformity, but the effect fades if the dissenter later joins the majority.
Conformity drops from 33 percent to 6 percent with a correct ally and to 9 percent even when the dissenter is also wrong, so what matters most is breaking unanimity, not the dissenter's accuracy. When the ally deserts halfway, conformity climbs back to 28 percent. Choices A, B and C each contradict one of these rows.
Question 2
In a follow-up to a line-judgment conformity study, participants heard the unanimous wrong answers of the group but then wrote their own answers privately, knowing no one would see them. Conformity dropped sharply. This result indicates that conformity in the public condition was driven mainly by
- normative social influence
- informational social influence
- obedience to authority
- group polarization
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. normative social influence
If people had truly come to believe the group was correct (informational influence), their private answers would also follow the group. The drop in private conformity shows that the public agreement mainly reflected a wish to be accepted and avoid disapproval, which is normative influence. No authority gave orders, and polarization concerns shifts after group discussion.
Question 3
A research team runs an ethically modified obedience study that stops at a moderate shock level. The percentage of participants who continue to the final level in each version is shown.
| Version | Percent who continued |
|---|---|
| Learner in a separate room, experimenter present | 70 |
| Learner in the same room | 44 |
| Experimenter gives orders by phone | 25 |
| Two peer teachers refuse to continue | 12 |
Which conclusion is best supported?
- Obedience is unaffected by the situation, so it reflects stable personality traits.
- Closeness to the victim, distance from the authority and defiant peers all reduce obedience.
- Physical closeness to the victim increases obedience.
- Peer refusal has a smaller effect than moving the learner into the same room.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Closeness to the victim, distance from the authority and defiant peers all reduce obedience.
Obedience falls from 70 percent to 44 percent when the learner is nearby, to 25 percent when the authority is remote, and to 12 percent when peers refuse, so each situational change lowers it. Choice A ignores these large differences, choice C reverses the proximity effect, and choice D is wrong because peer refusal produced the lowest rate.
Question 4
A skilled pianist and a beginner each play a piece alone and then in front of an audience of strangers. The pianist plays her most practiced concert piece, and the beginner plays a piece he started learning last week. According to Zajonc's account of social facilitation, what is the most likely result?
- Both improve, because an audience always raises motivation.
- Both get worse, because an audience always causes evaluation anxiety.
- The pianist improves and the beginner gets worse.
- The beginner improves and the pianist gets worse.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. The pianist improves and the beginner gets worse.
Zajonc argued that the mere presence of others increases arousal, which strengthens the dominant response. For the pianist the dominant response is accurate playing, so she improves. For the beginner the dominant response includes errors, so he gets worse. An audience does not uniformly help or hurt, which rules out A and B.
Question 5
Blindfolded participants wearing headphones pull on a rope. In some trials they are told they are pulling alone, and in others that several teammates are also pulling, although in fact they always pull alone. Measured force is lower when they believe teammates are pulling. Which change would most likely reduce this effect?
- Telling participants their personal force is measured and will be reported
- Adding more supposed teammates
- Making the team's combined force the only measure recorded
- Keeping each participant's contribution anonymous
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Telling participants their personal force is measured and will be reported
Lower individual effort on a pooled task is social loafing, and because the teammates were fictional, coordination loss cannot explain it. Loafing shrinks when each person's contribution is identifiable and can be evaluated. Adding teammates, measuring only the group total, or keeping contributions anonymous all increase diffusion of responsibility and would make loafing worse.
Question 6
In a hypothetical laboratory study, participants who believed they were alone with a student having a seizure almost always sought help quickly, while participants who believed four others could also hear the student helped less often and more slowly. Which process most directly explains the difference?
- Social facilitation of the dominant response
- Diffusion of responsibility among bystanders
- Group polarization of an initial tendency
- Obedience to an authority figure
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Diffusion of responsibility among bystanders
When others are present, each person feels less personal responsibility to act, so helping drops and slows, which is diffusion of responsibility, a key cause of the bystander effect described by Darley and Latane. No authority gave commands, no group discussion took place, and social facilitation concerns performance on tasks rather than helping decisions.
Question 7
A mock jury begins deliberation with most members mildly in favor of awarding damages. After an hour of discussion, the jury agrees on a larger award than nearly any member favored at the start. This shift best illustrates
- groupthink
- social loafing
- deindividuation
- group polarization
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. group polarization
Group polarization is the tendency of discussion to push a group toward a more extreme version of the view its members already leaned toward, here a mild lean toward damages becoming a large award. Groupthink concerns faulty decision processes driven by pressure for unanimity, social loafing concerns reduced effort, and deindividuation concerns loss of self-awareness under anonymity.
Question 8
All of the following are symptoms of groupthink as described by Irving Janis EXCEPT
- members holding back their doubts to preserve harmony
- a leader assigning one member to argue against the preferred plan
- an illusion that the group cannot fail
- members who shield the leader from contrary information
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. a leader assigning one member to argue against the preferred plan
Appointing a devil's advocate is one of the remedies Janis recommended to prevent groupthink, not a symptom of it. Self-censorship of doubts, an illusion of invulnerability and self-appointed mindguards who screen out contrary information are all classic symptoms that lead groups to poor decisions.
Question 9
On Halloween, researchers observed trick-or-treaters who were told to take one piece of candy and then left alone with the bowl. In which condition would deindividuation theory predict the most children taking extra candy?
- Children in groups whose names and addresses had been asked
- Children alone whose names and addresses had been asked
- Children alone who remained anonymous
- Children in groups who remained anonymous
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. Children in groups who remained anonymous
Deindividuation is strongest when anonymity combines with group immersion, which lowers self-awareness and accountability. Children in anonymous groups therefore should be most likely to break the rule, as Diener and colleagues reported. Giving names restores accountability, and being alone removes the group cues that further weaken restraint.
Question 10
Participants in a dark room judged how far a stationary point of light seemed to move, an ambiguous task because the motion is an illusion. After several sessions with other people, their estimates converged on a shared value, and they kept using that value when later tested alone. This pattern best illustrates
- normative influence producing public compliance only
- obedience to the experimenter
- informational influence leading to private acceptance
- social facilitation of a well-learned response
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. informational influence leading to private acceptance
In Sherif's autokinetic task there is no clear correct answer, so people treat others' estimates as evidence about reality. Because the group norm persisted when participants were alone, their private judgments had changed, which is informational influence and acceptance rather than mere public compliance. No one ordered them to agree, and no audience effect was measured.