resistance to social control Flashcards
social support milgram
in one of milgram’s variations, participant was one of team of three testing learner - other 2 were confederates who refused to continue shocking learner and withdrew, their defiance lead to only 10% continuing to max 450V shock level
individuals able to use defiance of peers as opportunity to stop themselves from causing further harm to victim as result of their obedience
social support asch
asch - found presence of social support enables individual to resist conformity pressure - intro of ally who also gave right answer caused conformity levels to drop from 33% to 5.5%. social support breaks unanimous position of majority.
disobedient peers act as role models for individual to have independent assessment of reality making them more confident in their decision and better able to stand up to majority
locus of control
locus of control - how much an individual perceives they have control over their own behaviour
internal locus of control - associated with belief that we control events in our lives, believe what happens to them is consequence of their own ability and effort, more likely to display independence and rely less on opinion of others - better able to resist social influence
external locus of control - believe what happens to them is determined by external factors such as luck, sense that things that happen are out of their control, approach events with passive and fatalistic attitudes, take less personal responsibility for actions and accept influence of others
SS evaluation - research demonstrates importance of SS in resisting social influence
rees and wallace - showed that SS provided by friends helped adolescents resist conformity pressures from majority - individuals with majority of friends who drank alcohol were significantly more likely to engage in drunkenness and binge drink over previous 12 months but also found individuals were able to resist pressures to drink alcohol when they had a friend who also resisted - consistent with lab based experiments and shows social support can decrease odds of non drinkers deciding to consume alcohol even when faced with conformity pressures of majority
SS evaluation - importance of response order
allen and levine - studied whether response position of person providing SS made difference to participant resisting majority :
one condition: confederate answered first giving right answer while other confederates all gave wrong answer, real participant always answered last.
second condition: confederate answered after all other confederates
support significantly more effective in first condition - suggests correct answer first confirms participant’s own judgement and produces initial commitment to correct response even though other group members disagree
LOC evaluation - people more external than they used to be
research suggests historical trend in LOC with young people becoming increasingly external
twenge et al - meta analysis found young americans increasingly believed their fate was determined by luck and powerful others rather than their own actions.
researchers found LOC scores became substantially more external in student and child samples between 1960 and 2002 - result of alienation experienced by young people and tendency to explain misfortunes on outside forces
LOC evaluation - LOC related to normative but not informational influence
spector - measured LOC and predisposition to normative and informational influence in 157 undergrad students - found significant correlation between LOC and predisposition to normative social influence, with externals more likely to conform to this form of influence than internals.
found no relationship for predisposition to informational social influence, with LOC not appearing to be significant factor in this type of conformity - concluded externals conform more than internals in situations of normative pressure but not more in situations of informational pressure
