resistance to social influence exam qs Flashcards
explain what is meant by locus of control
locus of control refers to how much control a person feels they have in their own behaviour.A person can either have an internal locus of control or an external locus of control.internal locus of control is a a person who believes they have great control over their behaviour and external locus of control is those who believe their behaviour is due to external forces etc luck
social support
In one of Asch’s experimental variations he showed that the presence of a dissident (a confederate who did not conform) led to a decrease in the conformity levels in true participants.
This is thought to be because the presence of a dissident gave the true participant social support and made them feel more confident in their own decision and more confident in rejecting the majority position.
evaluation point
There is a research support for social support amongst individuals.allen and levine (1971) replicated aschs study and found that conformity decreased when support was there , even if the dissenter was wearing glasses ,highlighting that they may not be as good as the line task
evaluation point 2
similarly there is supportive evidence for the role of loc .holland (1867) repeated milgrams study .results showed that 37% of internals didn’t go to the maximum shock compared to 23% of externals who didn’t go to the maximum shock.This shows a higher proportion of participants with internal LoC resisted
evaluation point 3
however there has been contradictory. Twenge et al (2004) analysed data from LoC studies over a 40 year period , it was found that over the time span there has been an increase in externals yet also an increase of resistance to obedience.This does not fit in with the loc explanation
evaluation point 4
rutter(1982) found that in familiar situations loc does not have as much influence.people who have conformed or obeyed before in specific previous situations will do so again even if they are internals
