Resistance to social influence Flashcards
(14 cards)
What is resistance to social influence?
The ability to withstand the social pressure to conform to majority or obey authority
What is locus of control?
A person’s perception of personal control over their own behaviour
What does someone with high internal locus of control believe about themselves?
Their life is determined by their own decisions and efforts
What type of explanation is locus of control?
Dispositional
Who is the key psychologist for locus of control?
Rotter
Which type of locus of control is more likely to resist social influence?
External as they believe their life is determined by fate and luck
What is social support?
We resist social influence due to the presence of people who resist pressures to confirm or obey which helps others do the same
How does social support enable someone to resist social influence?
Modelling independent behaviour that does not follow the majority and frees a person to act from their own conscience
Give a specific research example of howe social support can reduce obedience
Holland, who repeated Milgram’s study
Give a specific research example of how social support can reduce conformity
Allen and Levine
What research support is there for social support as an explanation for resisting social influence?
Allen and Levine
-Found independence increased with one dissenter in an Asch type study
-3% to 64% when a dissenter was added
-Resistance is not motivated by following what someone else says but it enables them to be free of the pressure from the group
-However SS did not always reduce conformity as when the dissenter had poor eyesight resistance was only 36% more
What research support is there for locus of control as an explanation for resisting social influence?
Holland
-Repeated Milgram’s study and measured whether participants were internals or externals
-37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level
-Only 23% of externals did not continue
-As internals showed greater resistance this support increases the validity of the LOC explanation and our confidence that it can explain resistance
What contradictory evidence is there for this?
Twenge et Al
-Analysed data from American obedience studies over a 40 year period
-The data showed that over this time span, people have become more resistant to obedience but more external
-If resistance was linked to an internal LOC then we would expect people to have become more internal
-This challenges the link between internal LOC and resistance
-However the results may be due to a changing society where many things are increasingly outside personal control
Why might the role of LOC be exaggerated?
Rotter et al
-LOC is only important in new situations
-It has little influence in familiar situations where previous experiences are always more important
-This does suggest that LOC can explain only a limited range of situations in which people may resist social influence
-This means LOC is not as important a factor in resistance as some have suggested
