Four terms that do different jobs

1. Obedience and conformity both describe changing what you do because of other people, but the pressure comes from a different place in each.
2. Deindividuation and the bystander effect both describe what being among other people does to you, one to your sense of self and one to your willingness to help.

Obedience

1. Obedience is following a direct order given by someone you see as an authority figure.
   1. The order is explicit and it comes from someone you see as being above you, such as a teacher, a police officer, a manager or a parent.
   2. You do not have to agree with the order, so obeying tells you nothing about what you privately think.
2. The tell-tale sign of obedience is that you can name the person who told you what to do.

Conformity

1. Conformity is changing your behaviour or opinions to match a group or majority, because of real or imagined pressure from that group.
   1. Nobody gives you an order, and very often nobody says anything to you at all.
   2. The pressure can be imagined, because simply believing the group expects something of you is enough to move you.
2. The tell-tale sign of conformity is that you cannot name one person who told you to change, only a group you did not want to stand out from.

Deindividuation

1. Deindividuation is losing your sense of individual identity when you are part of a crowd or group.
   1. It is most likely when you feel anonymous, for example in a large crowd, in a uniform, or with your face covered.
   2. Feeling anonymous loosens your normal self-control, so you may do things you would never do on your own.
2. Deindividuation is not the same as conformity, because it describes what happens to your sense of who you are rather than your behaviour coming into line with a group.

The bystander effect

1. The bystander effect is the finding that you are less likely to help someone in need when other people are present than when you are alone.
   1. It is a finding about how many other people are there, not about how kind or unkind you happen to be.
   2. The usual explanation offered for it is diffusion of responsibility, where each person present assumes someone else will act.
2. The effect runs the opposite way to most people's expectations, since more people present means less help rather than more.

Turning this into marks

1. Name the source of the pressure, because obedience needs the words authority figure or direct order and conformity needs group or majority.
2. When you are given a scenario, quote the detail that settles it, such as a named person issuing an instruction or an unspoken group standard.
3. The mark most often lost is describing the bystander effect as a type of person rather than as the finding that helping falls when others are present.