Dispositional Explanations of Resistance to Social Influence

Question 1

What is locus of control?

Answer 1

The extent to which a person believes they have control over their own behaviour.

Question 2

What do people with an internal locus of control believe?

Answer 2

They believe that what occurs in their life is the result of their own behaviour and actions.

They can therefore alter what happens to them.

Question 3

What do people with an external locus of control believe?

Answer 3

They believe that what happens in their lives is outside of their control.

They think what happens in their life is determined by chance or other people so they have no ability to alter it.

Question 4

Which type of locus of control is less like to conform or obey?

Answer 4

Internal

Question 5

Why are people with an internal locus of control less likely to obey?

Answer 5

They :

• rely less on external explanations
• feel they have control over their lives
• have more self - confidence
• feel more responsible for their actions

Question 6

What are the advantages to the locus of control theory?

Answer 6

• Oliner and Oliner interviewed 406 German people who had sheltered Jewish people from the nazis. These Germans had an internal locus of control, which had allowed them to disobey the Nazis.
• Milgram gave the participants a questionnaire to measure their locus of control and found that the 35% who had disobeyed were far more likely to have an internal locus of control than those who had obeyed.

Question 7

What are the disadvantages to the locus of control theory?

Answer 7

Conformers were less assertive that non - conformers but that the two groups did not score differently on a test to determine their locus of control. This suggests that assertiveness is more important than locus of control.