Knowledge quiz week 6

Question 1

Define social support

Answer 1

When others around you don’t conform or aren’t obedient so relieve the pressure for you to be.

Question 2

Give contradictory evidence for the link between LOC and resistance to obedience

Answer 2

Rotter points out that LOC only comes into play in novel situations. In familiar situations, our previous experiences will always be more important and LOC will have little influence. This is a limitation of LOC as it doesn’t always explain why we resist social influence as even if we have a high internal locus of conformity, if we have conformed once in a situation we are likely to again.

Question 3

Define resistance to social influence

Answer 3

Not conforming or being obedient when everyone else is.

Question 4

Give supporting evidence for the link between LOC and resistance to obedience

Answer 4

Holland repeated Milgram’s baseline study and measured whether participants were internals or externals. He found that 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level whereas only 23% of externals did not continue. This supports locus of control as people who were internals were less likely to continue giving shocks, showing how internals believe in themselves and so are likely to resist pressure from others.

Question 5

Give one example of research support for social support as an explanation for resistance to social influence

Answer 5

Allen and Levine (1971) found that conformity decreased when there was one dissenter in a study that used the Asch paradigm. More importantly, this occurred even if the dissenter wore thick glasses and said he had difficulty with his vision.
Gamson et al (1982) asked groups to produce evidence that would be used to help an oil company run a smear campaign. They found higher levels of resistance in their study than Milgram as 29 out of 33 participants (88%) rebelled.
In one of Milgram’s variations, the real participant was paired with two additional confederates, who also played the role of teachers. In this variation, the two additional confederates refused to go on and withdrew from the experiment early. In this variation, the percentage of real participants who proceeded to the full 450 volts, dropped from 65% (in the original) to 10%.

Question 6

Who is more likely to resist social influence - someone with an internal locus of control or someone with an external locus of control?

Answer 6

Internal locus of control