Situational Explanations of Resistance to Social Influence Flashcards
How strong is the pressure to conform?
The pressure to conform and/or obey can exert powerful influences over peoples’ behaviour. For example, in Milgram’s (1963) study 65%of people obeyed and Asch (1951) found that 75%of people conformed at least once.
Can people resist social influence?
However, in both of these studies, some people managed to resist the pressure to conform(non-conformity) or obey(disobedience). For example, 35%of people in Milgram’s (1963) study refused to obey and 25%of the participants in Asch’s (1951) study did not conform on a single trial.
What is social support theory?
Social support is a situational explanation of resistance to social influence. It argues that when one person refuses to conform/obey it makes it far more likely that other people will also resist social influence and refuse to conform/obey.
People are more likely to not conform if they have an ally who resists social influence and refuses to conform. This is because the ally refusing to conform breaks the unanimity of the group and groups are far more influential if they are unanimous. When unanimity is broken people start to think that there are other, equally legitimate, ways of thinking or responding. The presence of an ally gives them an independent assessment of reality and makes them feel more confident in their decision and better able to stand up to the majority.
People are also more likely to defy an authority figure if they see a disobedient role model refusing to obey. This is because when a person rejects the instructions of an authority figure it challenges that authority figure’s legitimate authority.
Strengths of Situational Explanations to Resistance to Social Influence
+ Milgram (1974) asked participants to deliver electric shocks to a confederate, Mr. Wallace, when he got a question wrong. The shocks were not real, but the participants believed they were. 65%of participants shocked Mr. Wallace up to 450 volts. However, when there was another confederate who acted as a
disobedient role model and refused to shock Mr. Wallace, only 10%of the participants delivered electric shocks up to 450 volts.
+ Asch (1951) asked participants to say which of three ‘test lines’ was the same as the ‘standard line’. The participants were in a group with confederates who purposefully gave the same wrong answer, even though the correct answer was obvious. In 33%of the trials the participants conformed to the group and gave the wrong answer (the chance of making a genuine mistake on this task was only 1%). However, conformity dropped to 5%when one confederate acted as an ally to the participant and gave the right answer.
Weakness of Situational Explanations to Resistance to Social Influence
-In both of the original versions of the studies outlined above some participants were able to resist social influence and refuse to conform/obey, even though they had no social support. This means that social support is not a complete explanation of resistance to social influence, other factors, such as personality traits, also play a part in allowing people to refuse to conform/obey.
