Explanations of Resistance to Social Influence, including Social Support and Locus of Control:

Locus of control (Rotter 1966) meaning

refers to the degree to which individuals believe that they can control the events affecting them. Those with an internal locus of control attribute outcomes to their own actions, while those with an external locus believe that external forces dictate their fate.

internal locus of control will

lead individuals to take responsibility for their actions and outcomes, believing they can influence their life circumstances through their own efforts.

external locus of control will

lead individuals to feel powerless over their circumstances, often attributing outcomes to chance or other external factors.

reserch evidence supporting the link between locus of control and obedience

Atigis (1998)- conducted a meta-analyis of studies considering locus of control and likeliness to conform. It was found that those who scored highest on the eternal locus of control were more easily persuaded and more likely to conform. Therefore, having an external locus of control leads to a greater rate of conformity

research evidence supporting the link between locus of control and social

responsibility.

Oliner and Oliner (1988) interviewed two groups of nonJewish people who had lived through the holocaust. They also interviewed 406 people who protected and rescued Jews from Nazis and 126 people who did not. The rescuers were found to have an internal locus of control and also scored higher on measures of social responsibility. However, this also draws doubt over the direct link between locus of control and resistance to obedience - perhaps measures of social responsibility are more important/influential?

Locus of controll evaluation weakness

The locus of control explanation is only valid for novel situations, as suggested by Rutter.Previous experiences are always more influential than LOC when an individual is making a decision as to how to act. This means that LOC is a limited explanation for only some cases of obedience

Social Resistence Asch

Asch found that when one of the confederates did not conform, and gave the actual correct answer, conformity levels in the participant dropped to one quarter of what they were when the majority had been unanimous. It has been said that this is not just due to the lack of unanimity of the majority, but the fact that the answer supports the participants true answer, it provides the participant with social support through also providing an alternative source of information. It gave them more confidence in their own perception by providing a small amount of confirmation of their answer, which is often enough to encourage the person to reject the majority position. Therefore, resistance to obedience in this case would be due to social support, as facilitated by normative social influence and informative social influence!

Gamson et al- big groups

larger groups provide a stronger social support system, which makes resisting obedience/social influence much easier. These researchers found that when participants where placed in groups, 88% resisted the pressure to conform to the same smear campaign which other confederates had developed. This also clearly demonstrates the significant influence of social support systems.

Essay- Evaluate reaserch into Social Resistence

Plan…