Resistance Flashcards
What is resistance
Having the ability to resist or withstand social pressure to obey or conform.
Explanations of resistance
Dispositional factors: Locus of control
Situational factors: social support
Locus of control
The extent to which people believe they have control over their own lives.
Internal locus of control
Believe that what happens in life is the result of their own behavior and control.
Tend to be more self-confident
Greater resistance to conformity/obedience
less need for approval
External locus of control
Believe that what happens to them is due to external factors like fate and that they don’t have control over it.
More likely to conform/obey
less able to resist
Evaluation of Locus of control
Conformity research: Spectator (1983) rotters scale of control.
Obedience research: Oliner and Oliner (1998) non Jewish WII survives
Evaluation of locus of control: Obedience research
Oliner and Oliner (1998) interviewed non-Jewish survivors of WII and compared those who resisted orders to those who didn’t.
Found that those who resisted were more likely to have an internal locus of control.
Evaluation of locus of control: Conformity research
Spectator (1983) used Roter’s scale of control to determine whether locus of control is associated with conformity.
More likely to resist conformity in situations where they have a desire to be liked. (not to be liked)
Methodological criticism
There is a problem with social desirability bias, where respondents may feel the need to say the right thing to please the researcher. This would then cast doubt on the validity of whether it is internal or external locus of control.
Social support
The presence of other people who resist the pressure to conform or obey and therefore help others to do so.
Social support: Resisting conformity
The presence of someone else makes it easier to resist social pressure, as they feel more confident in their own decisions, therefore more confident to reject the majority decision if someone else is going too.
social support: Resisting obedience
The presence of other people who disobey can serve to reduce obedience. As they seem to act as a role model and empowers them to also disobey this challenges the legitimacy of authority.
Evaluation of social support: Obedience research
The real participants were paired with two confederates, who played teachers. They refused to continue and withdrew.
The percentage of people who proceeded to 450volts dropped from 65% to 10%.
Suggests if an individual has social support then they are more likely to resist the pressure to obey.
Credibility of social support
Strength- research shows that the support does not have to be valid to have an effect.
Allen Levine (1971) found that people resisted social influence even though the support was not particularly convincing.
Suggests that a poor source of support still increases resistance even when the support is not credible.
