explanations to resistance to social influence Flashcards
What does resistance to social influence refer to?
Resistance to social influence refers to the ways in which individuals attempt to withstand perceived attempts to threaten freedom of choice. Individuals may withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or obey authority.
Resistance to social influence involves the following:
Disobedience i.e. challenging the authority figure and going against instructions given.
Non-conformity i.e. not yielding to group pressure and going against the behaviour of the group. This can occur in two ways:
Independence: involving a lack of consistent movement either towards or away from social expectancy (i.e. 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.
There are two explanations that have been put forward to explain resistance to social influence:
Social Support – this is a situational explanation
Locus of Control – this is a dispositional explanation
Research suggests that when there are others in social situations who defy attempts to make them conform and/or obey, then it becomes much easier for an individual to also resist such forms of social influence.
Seeing others disobey or not conform gives the observer the confidence and moral support to do so; they gain an ally.
There are different forms of social support depending on the type of social influence:
Dissenters (conformity) who break the agreement (unanimity) of the majority and act as allies.
Disobedient role models (obedience) who challenge the legitimacy of the authority figure.
Asch’s investigated the effect of social support in variations of his study - the naïve participant saw a dissenter (confederate) disagreeing with the majority wrong answer on critical trials, by providing either the correct answer or the alternative incorrect answer.
When the ally (dissenter) gave the correct answer, conformity dropped from 32% down to 5.5%.
When the dissenter (‘rebel’) went against both the other confederates and the real participant, providing the alternative incorrect answer, conformity dropped to 9%.
What do dissenters provide?
Dissenters provide the participant with moral support, breaking the unanimity of the majority and raising the possibility that there are other, equally legitimate, ways of thinking or responding.
What does the presence of an ally provide?
The presence of an ally provide the naïve participant with an independent assessment of reality that makes them feel more confident in their decision (validating their perception/ judgement) and better able to stand up to the majority (there will be a reduced pressure to fit in).
The timing of social support (i.e. at what point it is received) also seems to affect levels of resistance as early social support has been found to be more influential:
Asch found that if there is a dissenter who answers correctly from the start of the study, conformity drops from 32% (original variation) to 5.5%.
If the confederate only starts to dissent later in the study, conformity only drops to 8.5%.
With obedience, the presence of a disobedient model has been shown to be a powerful source of social support, making it easier for individuals to act independently.
Such people seem to demonstrate that disobedience is actually possible, as well as how to do it.
Research has shown that individuals are generally more confident in their ability to resist the temptation to obey if they can find an ally who is willing to join them in opposing the authority figure.
Disobedient peers therefore act as role models on which the individual can model their behaviour.
What is the locus of control?
LoC was identified as a personality dimension by Rotter (1966).
It concerns the extent to which people perceive themselves as being in control of their own lives.
It is measured along a dimension of ‘high internal’ to ‘high external’, although most of us would be somewhere between the two extremes.
A high internal locus of control is associated with
the belief that we can control events in our life.
Individuals with an internal LoC believe that what happens to them is largely a consequence of their own ability and effort.
Things happen as a result of their choices and decisions.
A high external locus of control is associated with
the belief that what happens to us is determined by external factors, such as the influence of luck and fate or other uncontrollable external forces.
Individuals with high external LoC believe things turn out a certain way regardless of their actions, that things ‘just happen to them’.
Rotter believed that having an internal LoC makes individuals …
Rotter believed that having an internal LoC makes individuals more resistant to social pressure.
People with a high external LoC are less likely to display
independent behaviour because they tend to approach events with a more passive and fatalistic attitude, taking less personal responsibility for their actions, which makes them more likely to accept the influence of others.
