Resistance

Social Support:

• argues a person can resist social influence better if they have an alliance

• this can be a role model or someone who just agrees

an ally builds CONFIDENCE to resist social influence

Locus of Control:

Rotter said LOC describes how much a person believes they have control over events which happen in their lives.

• Internal = someone believes they are in control of what happens to them

• External = someone believes what happens to them is due to luck or fate and they are not in control of their life

= all due to external forces eg. Other people

• Better internal LOC = better confidence and IQ in yourself so no need for others approval

• Continuum where most people are in the middle, there are some circumstances of extreme int/ext.

Evaluation - Low external Validity

• Rotter argued LOC only works in new situations

where there is new conformity/obedience

• something you have or haven’t conformed to before will be easy to repeat that pattern

eg. saying yes/no to a cigarette in social settings

Evaluation - Research Support

Alan and Levine

• repeated Asch’s study with one dissenter who wore thick glasses

= they went against the majority

• this gave ppts confidence and power to resist social influence due to having an ally

Evaluation - Research Support

Milgram’s study

• when ppts were paired with someone who refused to give shocks

= percentage of people who reached 450v decreased from 65% to 10%

• this increases the validity of the social support theory which suggests having an ally increaes your confidence to refuse SI

= especially obedience