resistance of social influence

what are the two explanations of resistance to social influence?

social support

locus of control

What is social support?

pressure to obey or conform can be resisted if another person is disobeying or not conforming

how does social support to resist obedience work?

The disobedient person acts as a model of dissent and frees them to act on their own conscience as they are challenging legitimacy of the authority figure, making it easier for others to disobey

how does social support to resist conformity work?

The fact that someone else isn’t following the majority and conforming acts as social support enabling the naive participant to be free to follow their own conscience. The non-conformer acts as a model of independent behaviour, giving rise to more dissent because it breaks unanimity.

what is locus of control (LOC)?

a concept concerned with internal control (believe things that happen are controlled by themselves) vs external control (believe things that happen are out of their control)

what is the LOC continuum?

people are either internal or external, LOC is a scale and people vary in their position on it

how does high internal LOC explain resistance to social influence?

they are more likely to resist pressures to conform or obey, meaning if a person takes personal responsibility for their actions they tend to base their decisions on their own beliefs and rely less on the beliefs of others

how does high external LOC explain resistance to social influence?

they are more self-confident and have higher intelligence, leading to greater resistance

which end of LOC continuum is more able to resist coercion from others?

high internal

evaluation for resistance to social influence (🙂x2, 🙁x2)

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• real world research support - susan albrecht et al (2006)

• evidence to support LOC and resisting social influence - Murphy et al (2021)

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• LOC is related to NSI but not ISI - correlation between LOC and predisposition to NSI but none for ISI

• LOC explanation ignores situation - LOC only affects behaviour in new situations as if you’ve conformed or obeyed in the past you’re likely to do so again regardless