Lesson 10- dispositional explanations of independent behaviour

Question 1

Locus of control

Answer 1

-Rotter (1966) argued that a persons personality determines whether they will conform/obey or resist social influence (dispositional explanation)
-a persons locus of control refers to the extent to which they believe they have control over their own behaviour, measured on a dimension from internal to external

Question 2

Internal/external locus of control

Answer 2

Internal: believe strongly that what occurs in their life is the result of their own behaviour and actions, they can therefore alter what happens to them, less likely to conform because they are
-more likely to be leaders than followers, less concerned with social approval, more self-confident, believe they control their own circumstances
External: believe strongly that what happens in their lives is outside their control, they think that what occurs in their lives is determined by chance or other people so they have no ability to alter it

Question 3

Evaluation (2 strengths 1 weakness)

Answer 3

-Oliner and Oliner (1988) interviewed 406 German people who had sheltered Jewish people from the Nazis during 1930s/1940s, had internal locus of control which allowed them to disobey the Nazis
-Milgram (1974) gave 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 obeyed
-Williams and Warchal (1981) found that comforters were less assertive than non-conformers but that the two groups did not score differently on a test to determine their locus of control, suggesting assertiveness is more important than locus of control in determining whether or not a person will refuse to conform/obey