social influence- resistance to social influence

Question 1

dissenting peer- asch

Answer 1

-pressure to CONFORM reduced if other people aren’t conforming
-asch shows dissenter doesn’t have to give the ‘right’ answer just have to give a different one to the majority and this frees the others to follow their own conscience
-the dissented shows the majority is now no longer unanimous

Question 2

dissenting partner- Milgram

Answer 2

-pressure to OBEY reduced if another person seen to disobey
-Milgram’s research showed obedient behaviour greatly decreased in the disobedient peer condition (from 65% to 10%)
-the p may not follow the disobedient peer but they allow them to act from their own conscience
-disobedient model challenges the legitimacy of the authority figure

Question 3

ao3 of RESTING CONFORMITY: supporting empirical evidence

Answer 3

-in a programme to help pregnant adolescents to resist pressure to smoke, social support was given by an older ‘buddy’ (albrecht et al. 2006)
-these adolescents were less likely to smoke at the end of the programme than a control group who didn’t not have a buddy
-shows social support can help resist social influence in real-world situations

Question 4

ao3 for DISSENTING PEERS: supportive empirical evidence

Answer 4

-Gamson et al (1982) groups asked to give evidence for an oil company to use in a smear campaign
-29 out of 33 groups (88%) rebelled against orders, much higher than in Milgram’s studies
-shows how supporters can undermine the legitimacy of authority and reduce obedience

Question 5

ao3 of social support

Answer 5

-only 3% of Allen and Levine’s (1971) p’s resisted conformity when there was no supporter. but 64% resisted when a dissenter refused to conform
-only 36% resided when the supporter clearly had poor eyesight and could not be relied on to judge the lines
-shows the explanation is valid as we would expect less resistance when p’s believed social support was not helpful.

Question 6

locus of control- internals

Answer 6

-place control with themselves
-believe the things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves (e.g. doing well or badly in an exam depends on how hard you work)

Question 7

locus of control- externals

Answer 7

-place control outside themselves
-believe things happen outside their control (e.g. fail an exam as had a bad teacher or had bad luck as qs were too hard)

Question 8

who came up with locus of control?

Answer 8

Rotter (1966)

Question 9

continuum with locus of control

Answer 9

-loc not just external/internal also a scale from one to the other and people differ in their position on it
-high internals at one end, high externals on the other

Question 10

why do internals have greater resistance to social influence?

Answer 10

-internal LOC= more likely to resist pressures to conform
1. take personal responsibility so more likely to base decisions on own beliefs
2. high internal LOC so more confident and achievement-orientated and have higher intelligence traits that lead to greater resistance.

Question 11

ao3- role of LOC in resting obedience- repeated milgrams study

Answer 11

-Holland (1967) repeated milgrams study and measured whether p’s internal or external
-37% of internals didn’t continue to highest shocks (showed greater resistance)
-only 23% of externals didn’t continue
-so resistance partly related to LOC increasing validity of this explanation for obedience

Question 12

ao3- role of locus of control- analysed American data

Answer 12

-Twenge et al. (2004) analysed American LOC studies over 40years (1960-2002) showed people become more independent but also more external
-surprising as if resistance was linked to LOC would have expected people to become more internal
-LOC may not be a valid explanation of resistance to SI