Resistance to social influence

Question 1

What are the explanations for resistance to social influence?

Answer 1

Locus of control

Social Support

Question 2

What does resistance to social influence involve?

Answer 2

disobedience

non conformity

Question 3

What is locus of control?

Answer 3

People who have an internal LoC are more likely to be able to resist social influence; if you take responsibility for your actions and decisions, then you are more likely to base your decisions on what you want, rather than what others want fro you. Therefore are less likely to conform and obey.

Question 4

evaluate LoC -

Answer 4

406 Germans who had protected Jewish people from the Nazi’s in WW2. These German people had disobeyed their government in favour of saving lives. They found that most of these German rescuers had internal LoC’s

Replication of Milgram’s electric shock study and had the ppts do a LoC test.
found that 37% of internals refused to continue to highest shock level.
found that 23% externals refused to continue to higher shock level.
This shows that internals are better at resisting social pressure.

Question 5

What is social support?

Answer 5

Pressure to conform can be reduced by the presence of non conformers.
Social support allows you to resist social influence because individuals who have support no longer fear being ridiculed.

Question 6

Evaluate social support -

Answer 6

In one of Asch’s variations, one of the confederates was instructed to answer correctly throughout.
In this variation, the rate of conformity dropped from 32% to just 5%.
This demonstrated that if the real participant has support for their belief, then they are more likely to resist the pressure to conform.