Resistance to social influence

Resisting conformity

The pressure to conform can be resisted if there are other people present who are not conforming . The fact that someone else is not following majority is called social support

Resisting obedience

The pressure to obey can be resisted if there is another person who is seen to disobey

Locus of control

-Julian rotter (1966) proposed locus of control as a concept concerned with internal and external control . The LOC is a measurement of an individual’s sense of control over their lives

Internal locus of control

-people with internal LOC believe they are accountable and take responsibility for their actions

-they conform and obey less as they’re more likely to be leaders not followers

External locus of control

-people with external LOC believe what happens to them is mainly a matter of luck/bad luck or outside forces

- they tend to not take responsibility for what happened to them e.g. if they fail a test they might blame it on a teacher or a textbook

Evaluation

SOCIAL SUPPORT

• a strength is that the research is evidence for the positive effects of social support . Susan Albercht (2006)evaluated Teen fresh start USA to resist pressure to smoke. Social support was provided by a slightly older mentor ‘buddy’ . At the end of the programme, adolescents who had a buddy were significantly less likely to smoke than a control group of participants who didn’t have a buddy .

• one limitation is that social support may not always be effective of the supporter’s opinion different too much of if they are perceived as unreliable or incompetent. This suggests that just having social support is not what matters, but how credible they are is what matters

  LOCUS OF CONTROL

• One strength is research evidence to support the link between LOC and resistance to obedience - Holland repeated Milgram’s baseline study and measured whether participants were internals and externals. He found that 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level, whereas only 23% of external ps did not continue. This means internals showed greater resistance to authority which supports Rotter’s LOC

• One limitation is evidence that challenges link between LOC and resistance - Twenge analysed data from American LOC studies conducted over a 40-year period. The data showed that over this span of time people became more resistant to obedience but also more external. This is a surprising outcome as we would expect resistance to be linked to internal locus of control. This suggests that LOC is not a valid explanation of how people resist social influence