Resistance To Social Influence

Question 1

What are the different factors affecting resistance to social influence?

Answer 1

Social support:
- Resisting conformity
The pressure to conform can be resisted if there are other people present who are not conforming. This is shown in Asch’s research where the confederate who is not conforming may not be giving the right answer. Simply the fact that someone else is not following the majority is social support. It enables the naive participant to be free to follow their own conscience. The confederate acts as a ‘model’ of independent behaviour. Their dissent gives rise to more dissent because it shows that the majority is no longer unanimous

• Resisting obedience
  The pressure to obey can be resisted if there is another person whose is sen to disobey. In one of milgrams variations, the rate of obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the genuine participant was joined by a disobedient confederate. The participant may not follow the disobedient persons behaviour bu the point is the other persons disobedience acts as a ‘model’ of dissent for the participant to copy and this frees him to act from his own conscience. The disobedient model challenges the legitimacy of the authority figure, making it easier for others to disobey.
• Locus of control topics:
  Julian Rotter proposed locus of control as a concept concerned with internal control versus external control. Some people have an internal LOC which states that these people believe that the things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves . Whereas people with an external LOC tend to believe that things that happen are outside of their control.
• The LOC continuum
  People are not just either internal or external. LOC is a scale and individuals vary in their position on it. So, high internal LOC is at one end of the continuum and high external at the other. Low internal and low external lie in-between.
  -Resistance to social influence through LOC
  People with high internal LOC are able to resist pressures to conform or obey.
  This is due to taking personal responsibility for their actions and experiences, they tend to base their decisions on their own beliefs rather than depending on the opinions of others. Another explanation is that people with a high internal LOC tend to be more self - confident, more achievement orientated and have higher intelligence. These traits lead to greater resistance to social influence. These are also characteristic of leaders, who have much less need for social approval than followers.

Question 2

Resistance to social influence evaluation - Social Support

Answer 2

Strength:
- Real world application
A study was done to test these theories about social support. Teen fresh start in USA, 8 week programme to help pregnant adolescents 14-19 resist the social pressure to smoke. social support was provided through am older “buddy/mentor”. results found that the adolescents with a mentor were much less likely to smoke than a control group of participants who did not have a mentor. this shows that social support can help young people to resist social influence as part of an intervention in the real world.

• Research support for dissenting peers
  A study by Gamson examined the role of dissenting peers in resisting obedience.
  Participants were told to produce evidence that would be used to help run an oil company run a smear campaign. The researcher found higher levels of resistance in their study than Milgram did in his, which was probably due to the participants being in groups so could discuss what they were told to do. 29 out of 33 participants (88%) rebelled against their orders. this shows that peer support can lead to disobedience by undermining the legitimacy of an authority figure.
• Social support explanation
  in an Asch type task, when a dissenter with “good eyesight”, 64% of genuine participants refused to conform. when there was no supporter at all, only 3% of participants resisted. However, the study showed that social support does not always help. This is because when the dissenter had obviously poor eyesight (thick glasses) resistance was only 36%.

Question 3

Resistance to social influence evaluation - Locus of control

Answer 3

Strength:
- Research Support
one strength is that there was a repeat of Milgrams study finding that 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level (resisted), whereas only 23% of externals did not continue. In other words, internals showed greater resistance to authority in a Milgram type study. This shows that resistance is partly related to LOC, which increases the validity of LOC as an explanation of disobedience

Disadvantage:
- Contradictory research
One limitation is that evidence challenges the link between LOC and resistance. A study analysed data from an American LOC study, which found that over the 40 year period people became more resistant to obedience but also more external. this is a surprising outcome. if resistance was inked to an internal LOC, we would expect people to have become more internal. This suggests that LOC is not a valid explanation of how people resist social influence.