resisting social influence

Question 1

what is social support?

Answer 1

• people may resist the pressure to conform/obey if they have an ally
• an ally helps build confidence, reduce the fear of being ridiculed, break unanimity and allows people to be more independent
• asch reports the effects of this may be short term - if the ally returns to conform so will the participant

Question 2

give a strength of social support reducing the pressure to conform
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Answer 2

research support: in one of asch’s variations a confederate was instructed to give the correct answer throughout, acting as an ally to the participant. in this variation, conformity dropped to 5%. this shows that if the participants has support for their beliefs then they are more likely to reject the pressure to conform. social support makes it easier for people to behave independently by lowering pressures

Question 3

give a strength of social support reducing the pressure to obey
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Answer 3

research support: in one of milgram’s variations the participant was paired with 2 confederates who also played a ‘teacher’ role. these confederates refused to continue the study and withdrew from it early, and the percentage of participants who gave the full 450V dropped to 10%. therefore, if the real participant has support (an ally) for their desire to disobey, they are more likely to be able to resist the pressures from an authority figure

Question 4

what is locus of control?

Answer 4

• proposed by rotter (1966)
• the extent to which people believe they have control over their own lives

Question 5

internal locus of control

Answer 5

• people believe what happens in their life is mostly the result of their own behaviour and they have control over their life
• they are more independent and more able to resits pressure to conform/obey

Question 6

external locus of control

Answer 6

• people believe what happens in their life is controlled by external factors and they don’t have control over their life
• they are more likely to succumb to pressure

Question 7

give a strength of locus of control
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Answer 7

research supports the idea that those with an internal locus of control are less likely to conform. spector (1983) used rotter’s locus of control scale, he found of 157 students those with a high internal locus of control were less likely to conform than those with a high external locus of control, but only in situations of nsi. there was no differences between groups for isi, suggesting that nsi is more powerful than isi in relation to locus of control

Question 8

give a strength of locus of control
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Answer 8

further research support. liner and liner (1998) interviewed non jewish ww2 survivors, comparing those who resisted orders and projects jews to those who didn’t. they found that the 406 ‘rescuers’ who resisted orders were more likely to have a high internal locus of control, compared to the 126 who obeyed. this supports the idea that a high internal locus of control makes people less likely to follow orders.

there were however other factors that may have caused people to follow orders during the war so it is hard to conclude that locus of control is the only factors

Question 9

give a limitation of locus of control
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Answer 9

contradictory evidence. twenge et al (1967) did a meta analysis of studies over 4 decades and found that over time, people have become more external in their locus of control but also more resistant to obedience, which contradicts rotter’s original theory. this therefore challenges the established link between internal locus of control and higher resistance