9. Explanations of resistance to social influence

To explanations of resistance to social influence

Social support, locus of control

How can having social support explain resistance to social influence?

• If a person has an ally (who supports their point of view) or, in the case of conformity, a dissenter (who deviates from the majority, although they may not share the same view or behaviour) they can resist the pressure or conform or obey

• This gives the individual social support in:

• Resisting conformity- no longer fear being ridiculed, allowing them to avoid NSI pressure to conform

• Resisting obedience- easier to stand up to an authority figure if there is someone else to share the consequences of doing so

• Dissenters make non-obedience and non-conformity an option that the individual may not have considered without them

Locus of control explanation for resistance to social influence- what is locus of control

The extent to which individuals believe that they control the events in their own lives

Individuals with a high Internal locus of control-

• what do they believe?

• How does this impact their behaviour?

• Believe that Events result primarily from their own behaviour and actions

• More likely to resist social influence because they are more likely to be confident and therefore less likely to change their behaviour to fit in with the group.

• Better control of their behaviour and are more likely to attempt to influence other people because they are more likely to assume that their efforts will be successful

High external locus of control

• beliefs

• Behaviour

• believe that powerful others, fate or chance primarily determine events

• Less likely to resist social influence

• More likely to change behaviour to fit into group

• Less likely to try to influence others

Are those with internal or external locus of control more likely to slip into Agentic state?

• External locus of control

• Internal locus of control more likely to believe that events happen as a result of their own behaviour or choices, so will not obey if they don’t feel comfortable with their behaviour- feel responsible for their behaviour

• However, external locus of control- more likely to pass responsibility for something they feel uncomfortable with onto someone else (Agentic state)

AO3- social support

P - research studies of conformity and obedience support the view that social support increases the likelihood that a person will resist social influence

E- Milgram- when there were 2 disobedient confederates present in the procedure, obedience in the real participant dropped to 10%. Conversely when there were 2 obedient confederates, obedience rose to 92.5%. This demonstrates the role of social support in obedient behaviour

E- Asch found that in his conformity procedure, when one of the confederates dissented from the majority and gave the right answer conformity dropped to 5.5% . Interestingly the percentage remained very similar (9%) when the confederate gave a different, wrong answer than the majority. Asch concluded that the important factor was that the participant had support in deviating from the norm, not support for his answer.

L- support this view that any deviation from the majority will act as social support for non-conformity or non-obedience

AO3- internal locus of control

P- Research to support the role of internal locus of control in resistance to social influence

E- Elms and Milgram- investigated the background of some of the disobedient participants from Milgram’s experiment. Found that disobedient participants had a higher internal locus of control and scored higher on a scale that measured their sense of social responsibility

E- Oliner and Oliner- interviewed 2 groups of non-Jewish people who had lived through the Holocaust in Nazi Germany: 406 who had rescued Jews, 126 who had not. Rescuers were more likely to have scores demonstrating a high internal locus of control than non-rescuers and also scored more highly on measures of social responsibility.

L- having an internal locus of control is likely to lead to independent behaviour

AO3- lack of internal validity

P- supporting research lacks internal validity as it is correlational- it is not possible to say that internal locus of control causes resistance to social influence

E- there may be another factor that is associated with locus of control that causes independence. E.g. maybe a certain parenting style leads to high internal locus of control and high levels of independent behaviour

E- research lacks reliability as not all studies support the view that locus of control is associated with resistance to social influence. E.g. Williams and Warchal- 30 university students were given a range of conformity tasks based on Asch’s procedure and assessed using Rotter’s locus of control scale. Those who conformed did not score differently on the locus of control scale but they were less assertive, maybe assertiveness had more to do with conformity than locus of control?

L- explanation is limited