Resistance to social influence

Social support AO1

• Situational factor

• Reduce conformity/obedience if there are other people resisting

• As seen in Asch’s study the person not conforming doesn’t have to give right answer - they just need to go against majority & act as a ‘model’

• Increases confidence in one’s own beliefs and reduces reliance on others

Locus of control AO1

• Dispositional factor

• Proposed by Rotter

• External control - believe outcomes are controlled by external factors (e.g. luck, fate, authority) & are more likely to conform or obey

• Internal control - believe outcomes are determined by their own actions, more independent and confident & more likely to resist social influence

• More likely to resists pressures to conform/obey as they take personal responsibility for their actions & more likely to base decisions on their own beliefs. Less need for social approval

Resistance to social influence strengths AO3

• P - research support (social support)

• E - In Asch’s study, participants were asked to state which comparison line matched the reference line, whilst a group of confederates unanimously gave an incorrect answer. However, when Asch introduced a dissenting confederate who gave the correct answer, conformity decreased from 32% to 5%. This is because the presence of an ally broke the unanimity of the majority, reducing the pressure from NSI as they felt more confident in their own judgement when they were not the only person resisting, which increased their ability to act independently. The findings are reliable because they come from a controlled laboratory experiment with standardised procedures, meaning the effect of social support on reducing conformity can be clearly established.

• T - Asch’s research provides strong evidence that social support is a powerful factor in increasing resistance to social influence, increasing the validity

• P - research support (locus of control)

• E - Holland conducted a replication of Stanley Milgram’s obedience study while also measuring participants’ locus of control using a standardised questionnaire. The findings showed that participants with an internal locus of control were significantly more likely to resist the experimenter’s orders. Internals were more likely to take personal responsibility for their actions and therefore refused to continue when they believed harm was being caused. In contrast, externals were more likely to obey, as they tend to see their behaviour as controlled by external forces such as authority figures, therefore entering an agentic state.

• T - this provides strong empirical support for the role of locus of control in resistance to social influence, as it demonstrates a clear link between an individual’s personality and their likelihood of resisting authority. This increases the validity of locus control as a dispositional factor of resistance.

Resistance to social influence limitations

• P - contradictory research

• E - Twenge at al conducted a large-scale analysis of data from American college students collected over several decades. The findings showed that, over time, individuals have become increasingly external in their locus of control. According to the locus of control explanation, this shift should lead to lower resistance to social influence, because externals are more likely to obey authority and conform to social pressure. However, Twenge found that despite this increase in externality, there has not been a corresponding decrease in independence or resistance. In some cases, levels of resistance have remained stable or even increased. This suggests that locus of control does not consistently predict behaviour, and that individuals with an external locus are not necessarily more likely to conform or obey than those with an internal locus. This suggests that resistance to social influence is much more complex, involving other factors like culture and situational factors.

• T - reduces the validity of locus of control as a comprehensive explanation of resistance.

• P - much of the supporting evidence comes from artificial laboratory tasks

• E - For example, in Asch’s study participants were asked to judge the length of lines. This task is clearly artificial, as it is unlike real-world situations where conformity pressure involves meaningful decisions, relationships, or consequences. Because the task was so trivial, participants may not have felt the same level of social pressure they would experience in everyday life, meaning their resistance (or lack of it) may not accurately reflect real-world behaviour. Furthermore, because participants knew they were in an experiment, their behaviour may also have been influenced by demand characteristics, meaning they may have guessed the aim of the study and adjusted their responses accordingly. This further reduces the validity of conclusions about resistance, as it is unclear whether behaviour was due to genuine resistance or experimental awareness.

• T - Therefore, while laboratory studies provide useful control, the artificial nature of the tasks limits the extent to which findings about resistance to Social Influence can be generalised to real-life situations