Resisting Social Influence Flashcards
Locus of control
Dispositional explanation:
Rotter(1966) proposed locus of control- which is the extent to which people believe they have control over their own lives.
- its measure on continuum
- individual either have internal or external locus of control.
Internal LOC- believe that what happens in their life is result of their own behaviour and have control over their life. Rotter proposes that this would be better at resisting social pressures, as they feel control of situation. They take personal responsibilities and make decisions on own beliefs. Also suggest that they have more self confidence and are more intelligent so leads to greater resistance and less need for social approval.
EXTERNAL LOC
Believe that what happens to then is controlled by external factors such as luck or fate. They are more likely to conform or obey as they feel they dont have control over their life. They believe things turn out regardless of their actions so less able to resist social influence.
EVALUATION OF LOC
Supporting evidence from obedience:
Research supports the idea that individuals with an internal LOC are more likely to resist pressure to obey. Oliner and oliner(1998) interviewed non jewish survivors of WW2 and compared those who resisted orders and protected jewish people from the nazis in comparison to those who had not. They found that 406 rescuers who had resisted orders were more likely to have internal LOC in comparison to 126 who followed orders. Therefore supports the idea that high internal LOC makes individuals less likely to follow orders.
Supporting evidence from conformity research:
Research supports the idea that individuals with an internal LOC are less likely to conform. Spector(1983) used rotters scale to determine whether LOC is associated with conformity. From 157 students, he found that individuals with high internal LOC were less likely to conform than those with external. However, this was only in situations of normative social influence, where individuals conform to be accepted. There was no difference between the two groups for ISI. This suggests that NSI is more power than ISI when considering LOC.
Alternative explanations- there might be other factors such as social responsibility contributing to indiduals resisting social influence. Elms and milgram set out to investigate the disobedient participants in milgrams experiments, by follow up interviews with a sample of participants. They found that disobedient participants have high internal LOC and scored high on social responsibility scale. Therefore appears that both LOC and social influence may be important in individuals ability to disobey orders. Suggests other factors need to be considered when explaining resisting social influence.
Methodological criticism- one criticism is the methodological used to investigate LOC. this is because LOC has typically been assessed using the rotter scale which was a 23 item forced choice scale. This consists of pairs of statements and for each item the respondent is asked to indicate which of the two statements more closely fits his or her views. Theres a problem of social desirability bias where people feel the need to say the right thing to please the researcher. This would cast doubt on the validity of the categorisation of people to internal or external LOC.
Social support: situational. Explanation
Resisting conformity
The presence of support from someone else makes it easier to resist social pressure, as the individual feels more confident in their own decision and therefore more confident to reject the majority position if someone else is doing so too. Having an ally who shares the individuals views, breaks the unanimity of the group. Once the unanimous position of the majority is broken other are then freed up to think, respond different to majority.
Resisting obedience
The presence of other people who disobey can serve to reduce obedience. Another person disobeying seems to act as a role model and empowers the observer to also disobey. Even a harmful action seem to be acceptable. Having disobedient role model who resists the pressures to obey challenges the legitimacy of the authority figure.
EVALUATION OF SOCIAL SUPPORT
Supporting evidence from conformity research- evidence for this explanation comes from aschs(1951) variations. In one of the variations, one of the confederate was instructed to give correct answer throughout. In this variation the rate of conformity dropped to 5% showing that having an ally makes it easier to resist conformity. Asch also showed that if non conforming confederate started to conform again then so does the naïve participant. Therefore demonstrates that if an individual has social support for their belief then they are likely to resist pressure to conform.
Supporting evidence from obedience research- evidence for this comes from milgram. In one of his variations the real participant was paired with two additional confederate
