Resistance to social influence Flashcards
What is resistance to social influence?
Refers to the ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or to obey authority- influence by situational & dispositional factors
What are the two ways we resist social influence?
Social support - situational
Locus of control- dispositional
What is social support?
The presence of people who resist pressures to conform or obey can help others to do the same- act as models
Social support - resisting conformity
Asch’s line study (unanimity variation) - the confederate told to give correct answer on line judgement task
- conformity dropped from 32% to 5%
-enabled naive participant to be free to follow own conscience and acts a model for independent behvaiour
Social support- resting obedience
-Milgram variations- participant joined by two confederates ( other teachers)
-refused to administer electric shocks
-obedience dropped for 65% to 10%
- disobedient model challenges LOA figure= easier to disobey
What is Locus of control?
-Proposed by Rotter
- Refers to how much a person believes they have control over events in our lives
What is internal LOC?
People who believe that they have control over their own lives
e.g. if i do well in an exam it’s because i’ve studied hard if not it’s because i didn’t study hard
What is external LOC?
People who believe they don’t have control over events in their life > controlled by external forces
Eg. if i did bad on exam it was bad luck if i did well it’s beacuse my teacher is the best
Why are people with high internal LOC more likely to resist pressures to conform or obey?
-They base their decisions around their own beliefs rather than opinion of others
- tend to be more self-confident, achievement orientated & intelligent = lead to greater resistance to SI
- characteristics of leader who have much less need for social approval
Real word research to support the positive effects of social support
-Albrecht et al evaluated Teen Fresh start USA»_space; programme to help pregnant adolescents resist pressure to smoke
-social support provided by a buddy
- end of programme»_space; adolescents who had buddy less likely to smoke than control who did not have a buddy
-help young people resist SI
What research support is their to support roles of dissenting peers in resisting obedience?
Gamson et al- researchers made up a situation where the p’s were asked to discuss a situation where an oil company had fired an employee.
-These discussions were filmed.
-At various times, the PR company (authority figure) stopped recording and told the p’s to argue from a viewpoint supporting the oil company.
-29/33 groups of participants rebelled to support the oil company.
> This shows that peer support is linked to greater resistance
What evidence is their to support the link between LOC and resistance to social influence?
Holland - repeated Milgram’s baseline study & measured whether participants were externals or internals
-37% of internals did not continue to 450V
-23% of internals did not continue to 450V
resistance related to LOC as internals more likely to resist pressures to obey
What contradictory research is there that challenges linked to between LOC and resistance ?
-Twenge et al (2004) analysed data from American LOC studies over a 40 YR period.
- data showed that, over this time span people have become more resistant to obedience but also more external (LoC).
- If resistance were linked to an internal LOC» expect people to have become more internal
