Explanations of resistance to social influence

Question 1

What is social support?

Answer 1

The perception of assistance and solidarity available from others

Question 2

What does research suggest about social support?

Answer 2

When others in a social situation who defy attempts to make them conform or obey, then it becomes much easier for an individual to resist such forms of influence

Question 3

What are dissenters?

Answer 3

They are a form of social support

The individual is not the person to break the agreement within the group

Question 4

What did Allen and Levine (1971) find?

Answer 4

Conformity was reduced on a task involving visual judgements if there was a dissenter, even if the dissenter wore glasses with thick lens and admitted to having an eyesight problem

Question 5

What did Asch find?

Answer 5

If there is a dissenter who answers correctly from the start of the study, conformity drops from 32% to 5.5%
If the confederate starts to dissent at a later point, conformity drops to 8.5%
Social support received earlier is more effective than received later

Question 6

What did Milgram find?

Answer 6

When 2 confederates paired with the real participant left the study early on, declaring that they would go no further, only 10% of rps gave the max 450v
Creates a group norm of disobedience which puts the participants under pressure to conform to the behaviour of the confederate

Question 7

What is the locus of control?

Answer 7

The extent to which individuals believe that they can control their lives

Question 8

What do individuals with a high internal LoC believe?

Answer 8

They can affect the outcomes of situations.

Question 9

What do individuals with a high external LoC believe?

Answer 9

Things will turn out a certain way regardless of their actions

Question 10

What did Rotter believe?

Answer 10

Having a high internal LoC makes the individual more resistant to social pressure with those seeing themselves in control of a situation more likely to perceive themselves as having a free choice to conform or obey

Question 11

What did Spector look at?

Answer 11

LoC and resisting conformity

Question 12

What did Spector find?

Answer 12

When they gave Rotters LoC scale to 157 university students, that those with a high external LoC did conform more than those with a low external LoC, but only in situations that produced normative social pressure.
Both types of rps did not conform in situations that produced ISI.
Suggests that people with less of a need for acceptance into a social group will be more able to resist social influence

Question 13

What did Holland look at?

Answer 13

LoC and resisting obedience

Question 14

What did Holland find?

Answer 14

There was no link between LoC and obedience.

Question 15

What did Blass (1991) do?

Answer 15

Reanalysed Hollands findings with more precise statistical analysis and found that participants with an internal LoC were more able to resist obedience than those with an external LoC, suggesting that the aspect of personal control in a situation is important as those with a high internal LoC like to feel like they have choice over their behaviour

Question 16

Which other factors are involved in resistance of conformity?

Answer 16

Reactance
Ironic deviance
Status

Question 17

How is reactance involved in resistance to conformity?

Answer 17

when freedom of choice is restricted, they may react with reactance
Eg. When teenagers rebel against conforming to adult rules

Question 18

How is ironic deviance involved in resistance to conformity?

Answer 18

If the truthfulness of a source of ISI is doubted, then the chances of individuals conforming to the guidance given will be lessened.

Question 19

How does status relate to resistance to conformity?

Answer 19

People of low status within a group, eg. newcomers, are motivated to attain higher status by exhibiting conformist behaviour

Question 20

What did Avtgis (1998) do?

Answer 20

Performed a meta analysis of studies involving locus of control and conformity and found that individuals with an internal locus of control were more easily persuaded and less likely to conform

Question 21

What did Moghaddam (1998) find?

Answer 21

Japanese people conform more easily than American people as they have a high external LoC and Americans have an internal LoC

Question 22

What does Moghaddam’s findings suggest?

Answer 22

Differences in resistance to social influence across cultures can be explained by differences in LoC

Question 23

What did Richardson (2009) do?

Answer 23

• 84 male and female RPS randomly assigned to same sex groups
• Real RPS were led to believe they were newcomers
• Confederates introduced themselves first as either a high or low status
• Had to decide which stock company to invest in
• RPS gave their answers last

Question 24

What were the results of Richardson’s study? (2009)

Answer 24

high status confederates = more conformity

low status confederates = less conformity

Question 25

What are some evaluative points of Richardson’s (2009) study?

Answer 25

• Ethical issues - involved deceit of participants so informed consent couldn’t be given

Question 26

What did Conway and Schaller find? (2005)

Answer 26

• Office workers were more likely to conform and use a software product if recommended by other employees compared to if the employees had been ordered by the manager to recommend it
• ironic deviance

Question 27

What did Taylor (1997) find?

Answer 27

Disobedience increases when people are encouraged to question the motives of an authority figure issuing the order. This suggests that systematic processing helps resist obedience by lessening the legitimacy of authority figures

Question 28

What did Hamilton (2005) find?

Answer 28

Teens were more likely to do drugs when they were told they weren’t allowed.
When freedom is threatened, resistance is more likely to occur