Resisting social influence. Flashcards
Resistance to social influence.
Resistance to SI involves disobedience and non-conformity, with non-conformity occurring in two ways:
- Independence: Involving a lack of consistent movement either towards or away from social expectancy (doing your own thing).
- Anti-conformity: Involving a consistent movement away from social conformity, for instance adopting the behaviour and norms of a minority group.
Explanations of resistance to social influence:
- Social support (situational/external explanation).
- Locus of control (dispositional/internal explanation).
Social support
- Research suggests that when there are others in social situations who defy attempts to make them conform, the pressure to conform can be reduced if there are other people present who are not conforming.
- Asch’s study - when another person disagreed with the majority’s wrong answer, conformity dropped to 5%.
- Social support can also help people resist obedience, the pressure to obey can be reduced if there is another person who is seen to disobey.
- In one of Milgram’s variations, the rate of obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the participant was joined by another disobedient confederate.
Locus of control.
- In some cases, people can resist the pressures to conform/obey because of their personality (Rotter, 1966).
- He proposed the idea of locus of control, which is the extent to which people believe they have control over their lives.
Internal LOC:
People believe that what happens in their life is largely a result of their own behaviour – they have control over their life.
How does this relate to social influence?
- High internals actively seek out info which will help them personally and are less likely to reply on others.
- They are more achievement orientated. They can resist pressure from others.
External LOC:
People believe that what happens to them is controlled by external factors and they don’t have complete control over their life.
How does this relate to social influence?
- High externals are more likely to be influenced by others as they don’t believe they exercise personal control over their lives.
Continuum.
- People differ in the way that they explain their successes and failures - it is not as simple as being an internal or external.
- There is a continuum (almost like a scale) with high internal LOC at one end and high external LOC at the other end of the continuum - with low internal and low external lying in-between.
Strength: Supporting research - Allen and Levine (1971)
P: Research evidence supports role of dissenting peers in resisting conformity.
E: Allen and Levine (1971) found that independence increased with one dissenter in an Asch-type study. This occurred even if the dissenter wore thick glasses and said he had problems with vision.
C: So, resistance not motivated by following what someone else says, but enables someone to be free of pressure from one group.
Strength of LOC and resistance of obedience: Supporting research - Holland (1967)
P: Research evidence supports link between LoC and resistance to obedience.
E: Holland (1967) repeated Milgram’s study and measured whether p’s were internals or externals. 37% of internals didn’t continue to highest shock level. Only 23% of internals did not continue.
C: Internals showed greater resistance. Support increases the validity of LoC explanation and our confidence that it can explain resistance.
Limitation of LOC and resistance: Not all research supports link between LoC and resistance.
P: Not all research supports link between LoC and resistance.
E: Twenge et al (2004) analysed data from American LoC studies over 40 years, showing people have become more independent but also more external.
C: Challenges link between internal LoC and resistance. However, results may be due to changing society where many things are increasingly outside our personal control.
