resistance to social influence

social support on conformity

- pressure to conform can be reduced if dissenters are present

- Asch's unanimity variation showed this

- the risk of alienation is decreased when the pp's have an ally so they are less likely to conform

- social support can assist us in resisting conformity

--> however found that this was temporary; if the dissenters start to conform, so will the ppts

social support on obedience

- in one of Milgram's variations rate of obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when genuine pp was joined by disobedient confederate

- he had a disobedient and obedient confederate join pp's and they were mostly influenced by disobedient confederate

- other persons disobedience acts as a model for the pp to copy that frees him go act from his own conscience

social support evaluation

Strengths:

- Allen and Levine (1971) found conformity decreased when there was a dissenter in an Asch-type conformity procedure, even if the dissenter wore thick glasses and said he had difficulty with his vision. Supporting the view that conformity is not just getting someone else's approval.

- Milgram found obedience dropped significantly 65% to 10% when a 'disobedient' confederate was introduced into the situation. Asch found that conformity dropped from 32% to 5.5.% when a confederate went against the majority.

- Mullen et al found that people were more likely to jaywalk when they saw others doing it, disobeyed the sign when other did

Weakness:

- There are methodological issues with the research, many studies into social support are under controlled, artificial setting with unrealistic tasks. people can figure out the aim and act in the way that the investigator wants, lowering the internal validity.

locus of control

how much control a person feels they have over their life

internal locus of control

take full responsibility for the outcome of their actions, they don't rely on the opinions of others and are more likely to be leaders

external locus of control

blame other when things go wrong, they see life as being something that 'happens' to them and believe in luck or fate

LOC link to conformity and obedience

- people with an external locus of control are more likely to obey and conform

- people who have an internal locus of control are more likely to be able to resist social influence

why?

1. if a person takes responsibility for their actions and experiences (good or bad) then they are more likely to base their decisions on their own beliefs and thus resist pressures from others

2. people with an internal locus of control tend to be more self-confident, achievement orientated, intelligent and have less need for social approval, their personality traits lead to greater resistance to social influence

LOC evaluation

+

- Holland (1967), in Mi8lgram's study 37% of internals were disobedient compared to 23% of externals

- Avtgis (1998), conducted a meta analysis on studies with relationship between LOC and conformity, they found a positive correlation between external LOC and conformity rates of 0.37, as so9meones external LOC increases so did their conformity rates, however quite a weak correlation

-

- results from studies not always consistent, Schurz (1985) carried out similar study to Milgram on Austrian participants and 80% went to highest, found no link between LOC and level of obedience, but did find a link between ILOC and a sense of autonomy

- often situation we are in which influences our ability to resist rather than our personality, only really LOC influence when met with new situations may not explain all circumstances