Resistance To Sicial Influence Flashcards
Locus control may offer a more limited explanation for resisting social influence > social support
E – Social psychologists tend to view the social situation as paramount in explanations of social behaviour. Personality is considered as a moderating factor, and one with less significance in ‘strong’ social situations compared to ‘weak’ social situations.
E – This means that locus of control (which is a personality variable) may play a less significant role in explaining resistance to social influence than explanations that focus on the social situation. This means researchers might first look to situational factors, such as the presence of social support, to explain resistance to social influence. After this, they might consider locus of control as an explanation for individual differences in people’s ability to resist within a particular social situation (e.g., where there is or isn’t social support).
L – Therefore, locus of control and social support both contribute part of the explanation for resisting social influence, although arguably social support provides a larger overall part of this explanation than locus of control.
Research supports the idea that individuals with an internal LoC are more likely to resist the pressure to obey
E - Oliner and Oliner (1998) found that non-Jewish survivors of WWII who had resisted orders and protected Jewish people from the Nazi’s were more likely to have a high internal locus of control than those who had simply followed orders.
E - These results appear to support the idea that a high internal locus of control helps people resist obedience, as the disobedient survivors were more likely to have an internal LoC than those who had obeyed. However, a key limitation of this study is its reliance on correlation, which does not imply causation. While this study shows an association between internal locus of control and disobedience, the direction of causation is uncertain: an internal locus of control could cause the disobedience, or the act of disobeying orders could cause an internal locus of control, by fostering a stronger sense of agency in the individual.
research support for the role of social support in resisting conformity.
E – In Asch’s baseline study into conformity, 33% of participants’ responses conformed with the majority’s obviously wrong answer to the line judgement task. This dropped to 25% when Asch introduced a dissenting confederate.
E – This finding supports the role of social support in resisting conformity as when Asch introduced a dissenting confederate, he gave the real participants social support. This broke the unanimity of the majority, reducing the power of normative social influence, thereby helping the participant to resist conformity. However, there were individual differences between Asch’s participants in their ability to resist conformity. Such differences are best explained by a dispositional explanation, like locus of control, which acts as a moderating variable to explain variations within a single social situation. This means that social support offers a limited explanation, as can’t explain individual differences. Furthermore, the low ecological validity of Asch’s research undermines this study’s support for the role of social support in resisting social influence. Asch’s line judgement task was highly artificial, so it may tell us little about how resistance to social influence functions in real-world situations.
research support for the role of social support in resisting obedience
E – The power of social support was illustrated when Milgram (1974) varied his original experiment by having two confederates disobey by refusing to shock the learner. Consequently, obedience fell from 65% to 10%.
E – These findings clearly show that introducing social support in the form of a disobedient peer increases the likelihood that a person will resist the social influence pressure of obedience. However, there were individual differences between Milgram’s participants in their ability to resist obedience. Such differences are best explained by a dispositional explanation, like locus of control, which acts as a moderating variable to explain variations within a single social situation. This means that social support offers a limited explanation, as it +can’t explain individual differences. However, demand characteristics in Milgram’s experiment weaken its support for social support in resisting obedience. Later research suggests many participants doubted the shocks were real, meaning resistance may have stemmed from a desire to please Milgram rather than the influence of social support
