Explanations of resistance to social influence,

Question 1

what are the two Explanations of resistance to social influence

Answer 1

social support and locus of control

Question 2

Explain social support

Answer 2

Social support is seeing other individuals resisting orders and pressure to conform. This can help increase an individual’s confidence in resisting social influence, both via pressures to conform and orders from authority figures.
In terms of obedience having others who are defiant around us gives us disobedient role models, challenging the legitimacy of the authority figure. For conformity this creates a small alternative group to belong to, breaking the unanimity of the dominant group.

Question 3

Evaluation for social support

Answer 3

In one of Asch’s variation studies he tested unanimity. He found that if the confederate gives the right answer just before the participant’s turn to answer, conformity drops to 5.5%. This rate of conformity stayed the same even if the confederate gave a different wrong answer to the rest of the group.This may be because another person going against the majority gives the participant social support to dissent.

Allen and Levine (1971) showed the same effect in a similar study even if the non-conforming confederate had thick glasses and stated clearly that he had difficulty seeing.

Question 4

Explain locus of control

Answer 4

Locus of control- this was suggested by Rotter to be an individual’s sense of personal control over their lives. This can be measured on a scale. Personality ranges from high internal locus of control to high external locus of control.
Someone with a high internal locus of control has a sense of responsibility for their actions and feels that their actions/choices dictate/control their lives. As a result they feel less concerned about social approval. Therefore someone with a high internal locus of control is much more able to resist pressures to conform or obey.
Someone with a high external locus of control feels that their life is controlled by external forces, such as others, fate, or the government, and so feel little responsibility for their actions. As such they are very concerned about social approval. Therefore someone with a high external locus of control is much less able to resist pressures to conform or obey.
The majority of people score somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, with only a few getting scores close to either end.

Question 5

Evaluate locus of control

Answer 5

Holland (1967) replicated Milgram’s study and assessed participants for internal or external locus of control. 37% of those with an internal locus of control refused to continue to the highest shock level, compared to 23% of those with an external locus of control. This suggests that those with a high internal locus of control are more able to resist orders.
However, the majority of those in both groups still obeyed so locus of control cannot fully explain why people obey.
Also whilst high internal locus of control correlated with decreased obedience, correlation is not causation. Another factor, like level of empathy may have affected results.