Resistance To Social Influence + Social Change Flashcards
Resisting obedience
- Dissenter models independent behaviour -> shows it can be done
- Enables people to follow their own conscience
- Breaks unanimity (powerful binding factor)
- Challenges legitimacy of authority figure
Resisting conformity
- Confederates not conforming
- Someone else is not following majority -> social support
- Enables participant to follow own conscience - shows majority is no longer unanimous
Locus of control
- Internal control vs external control
- A continuum ( on a scale )
High internal LOC
- Believe thing that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves
- More able to resist pressures to conform or obey
- More self confident, achievement orientated, leaders with less need for social approval
High external LOC
Believe things that happen are outside of their control
Strength for social support
- Susan Albrecht evaluated programme to stop teens smoking
- Social support provided by older mentor ‘buddy’
- P’s with a buddy were significantly less likely to smoke than a control group who didn’t have a buddy
- Shows having social support can help people resist social influence
Research for dissenting peers
- Gamson participants told to produce evidence that would be used to help an oil company smear campaign
- Researchers found high levels of resistance study -> p’s were in groups so could discuss what they were told to do 29/33 groups rebelled against orders
Research support for LOC
- Holland repeated Milgram’s baseline study and measured whether participants were internals or externals
- Found that 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level
- 23% of externals did
- Internals show greater resistance to authority
Limitation for LOC and resistance
- Twenge analysed data from American locusts of control studies over 40 year period
- People became more resistant to obedience but also more external
- Is resistance is linked to an internal locus of control, we would expect people to have become more internal
Minority influence
A minority of people persuades others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours
This leads to internalisation - private attitudes changed as well as public
Synchronic consistency
All saying the same thing
Diachronic consistency
They’ve been saying the same thing for some time now
Minority influence - consistency
If the minority is consistent (synchronic or diachronic) this attracts the attention of the majority over time
Research support for consistency
Moscovici blue green slide study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater affect on changing the views of other people
Six participants, state whether slides were green or blue
2 confederates consistently gave wrong answers - gave the same wrong answer 8% of the trials
Commitment
Personal sacrifices show commitment, attract attention, reinforce message
Augmentation principale
If a person performs an action when there is know constraint their motive for acting must be stronger
Flexibility
Minority more convincing if they accept some counter arguments
Strike balance between consistency and flexibility
Explanation for the process of change
Three factors make majority think more deeply about an issue
Snowball effect
Minority view gathers force and becomes majority influence
Research support for deeper processing
- Martin presented message support view
- One group of p’s heard minority group agreeing with initial view
- Another group heard majority group agree
- Less willing to change opinions if they’d listened to minority group
Artificial tasks limitation
Tasks involved are often artificial -> lacking external validity
E.g. Moscovici study
Steps in how minority social influence creates social change
- Drawing attention
- Consistency
- Deeper processing
- Augmentation principle
- Snowball effect
- Social cryptomnesia
Social cryptomnesia
People have a memory that change has occurred but don’t remember how it happened
Lessons from conformity
- Environmental + health campaigns which exploit conformity processes by appealing to normative social influence
- Provide information about what other people are doing e.g. most other young people do not smoke
- Drawing attention to what the majority are doing
Research support for normative social influences
- Nolan aimed to see if they could change peoples energy use habits
- Hung messages that most most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage
- Some residents had a different message that just asked them ti save energy
- Significant decreases in energy usage in the first group compared to second
Lessons from obedience research
Milgram - importance of disobedient role models
Zimbardo - suggests how obedience can be used to/create social change through the process of gradual commitment
Limitation of deeper processing
Mackie - argued majority influence that may create deeper processing, like to believe that other people share our views
Minority influence explains change
Nemeth- when people consider minority arguments they engage in divergent thinking
Dissenting minorities stimulate new ideas and open minds in a way majorities can’t
