Resistance To Social Influence Flashcards
What is meant by resistance to social influence?
The ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or obey authority. This is influenced by both situational and dispositional factors.
What are 2 explanations for resistance to social influence
Social support, Internal locus of control
What is Locus of Control?
The extent to which people believe they have control over their own lives
What is social support?
The presence of people who resist pressure to conform or obey can help others do the same.
Internal vs External LOC
Internal - The belief that we are responsible for what happens in our lives
External - The belief that what happens in our life in outside our control
How does LOC influence resistance to social influence?
Having a High Internal LOC increases one’s ability to resist social pressure to obey/conform. This is because they are more likely to be:
Self-confident and not require the approval of the group
Information seekers and rely less on the opinion of others, making them less likely to go against others.
Resistance to conformity evidence (social support)
In Asch’s study, the presence of a dissenting confederate decreased conformity from 32% to 5.5%
Resistance to obedience evidence (social support)
In Milgram’s study, seeing a confederate disobey orders reduced obedience from 65% to 10%
1 Strength for social support and 1strength for LOC
Research support for conformity:
Rees and Wallace (2015) found that individuals with a majority of friends who drank alcohol were significantly more likely to have engaged in drunkenness and binge drinking over the previous
12 months. They also found individuals were able to resist pressures to drink alcohol when they had a friend or two who also resisted.
Research support for obedience:
Holland (1967) repeated Milgram’s baseline study and measured whether participants had internal or external locus of control. He found that people who were classified as ‘internals’ were more likely to disobey compared to people classified as ‘externals.’ This demonstrates that people with an internal LOC are more resistant to authority.
1 Limitation of LOC and 1 Limitation of social support
36Contradictory evidence:
Twenge et al. (2004) analysed data from American LOC studies across 40 years and found that over time, people have become more resistant to obedience but also more external. If resistance was linked to internal locus of control, we would expect people to have become more internal as resistance has increased. Challenges the link between LOC and resistance.
Social support will only help with resistance if the source seems credible:
Allen and Levine (1971) - In an Asch-type task, when the dissenter was someone with apparently good eyesight, 64% of participants resisted conformity and when there was no social support only 3% resisted · However, when the dissenter had visibly poor eyesight (wearing thick glasses) the resistance was only 36%.
Suggests that social support will only help with resistance if the source seems credible/reliable
