Resistance to Social Influence Flashcards
Social support
Conformity
Social support can help people to resist conformity. The pressure to conform can be reduced if there are other people present who are not conforming. As we saw in Asch’s research the person not conforming doesn’t have to be giving the right answer but simply the fact that someone else is not following the majority appears to enable a person to be free to follow their own conscience. This other person acts as a ‘model’.
However, Asch’s research also showed that if this non-conforming person starts conforming again, so does the naive participant. Thus the effect of dissent is not long lasting.
Obedience
Social support can also help people to resist obedience. The pressure to obey can be reduced if there is another person who is seen to disobey. In one of Milgram’s 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 person’s behaviour but the point is the other person’s disobedience acts as a ‘model’ for the participant to copy the frees him to act from his own conscience.
Evaluation of social support
+ Research evidence supports the role of dissenting peers in resisting conformity. For example, Allen & Levine (1971) found that conformity decreased when there was one to centre in an Asch-type study. More importantly, this occurred even if the dissenter wore thick glasses and said he had difficulty with his vision (so he was clearly in no position to judge the length of the lines).
This supports the view that resistance is not just motivated by following what someone else says but it enables someone to be free of the pressure from the group.
+ Another strength is that there is research evidence that supports the role of dissenting peers in resisting obedience. Hanson et al. (1982) found higher levels of resistance in their study than Milgram. This was probably because the participants in Gamson’s study were in groups.
In Gamson’s study, 29 out of 33 groups of participants (88%) rebelled. This shows that peer support is linked to greater resistance.
Locus if control (LOC)
Rotter (1966) first proposed the concept of locus of control. It is a concept concerned with internal control vs external control. Some people (internals) believe that the things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves. For example, if you do well in the exam it is because you worked hard, if you don’t do well it’s because you didn’t work hard. Other people (externals) have a tendency to believe that things happen without their own control. If they did well in an exam they might well say it was because they used a good textbook. If they failed they might blame it on the textbook or they had bad luck because the questions were hard.
Continuum
People differ in the way they explain their successes and failures but it isn’t simply a matter of being internal or external. There is a continuum with high internal LOC at one end and high external LOC at the other end of the continuum, with low internal and low external lighting in between.
Resistance to social influence
People who have an internal LOC are more likely to be able to resist pressures to conform/obey. This is fairly obvious if you think about it – if a person takes personal responsibility for their actions and experiences (good or bad) then they are more likely to base their decisions on their own beliefs and thus resist pressures from others.
Another explanation for the link with greater resistance is that people with a high internal LOC tend to be more self-confident, more achievement-oriented, have higher intelligence and have less need for social approval. These personality traits lead to greater resistance to social influence.
Evaluation of LOC
+ Research evidence supports the link between LOC and resistance to obedience. Holland (1967) repeated Milgram’s baseline study and measured whether participants were internals or externals. He found that 37% of internals did not continue to the higher shock level (i.e. they showed some resistance) whereas only 23% of externals did not continue. In other words internals showed greater resistance to authority.
Research support of this nature increases the validity of the LOC explanation and our confidence that it can explain resistance.
- However not all research supports the link between LOC and resistance. Twenge et al. (2004) analysed data from American locus of control studies over 40-year period (from 1960-2002). The data showed that, over this time span, people have become more resistant to obedience but also more external. If resistance were linked to an internal locus of control, we would expect people to have become more internal.
This challenges the link between internal LOC and increasing resistant behaviour. However, it is possible that the results are due to a changing society where many things are out of personal control.
