Social Influence: Resistance to social influence

Question 1

What are the two explanations to resisting social influence?

Answer 1

Social support and Locus of control

Question 2

What is social support?
-Give examples in conformity and obedience

Answer 2

This is the idea that people who resist pressures to conform or obey encourage people to do the same. These ppl act as a model, to show resistance to social influence is possible.

Social support in conformity:

-In one of Asch’s experimental variations, he showed that the presence of a dissenter can decrease levels of conformity from participants. This is because participants are more confident in their answer and they feel there is a less chance of social rejection.

social support in obedience:

• In Milgram’s experimental variation, two other participants (confederates) were also teachers and refused to obey experimenter. Obedience rates dropped from 65% to 10% when the genuine participant joined the disobedient

Question 3

What is the locus of control?

Answer 3

Ross(1966)
Locus of control describes how much control a person feels they have over events in life.

There are the two types:
Internal Locus of control - perceives themselves as having personal control over their actions and outcomes.
External Locus of control - perceives events in their life being the result of external factors (eg. luck, fate or the influence of others)

Question 3

Evaluate the resistance social influence

Answer 3

P: One strength of social support is that there is real life application.
E: Albrecht et al. (2006) evaluated Teen Fresh Start USA and found that pregnant teens paired with a ‘buddy’ were significantly better at resisting social pressure to smoke compared to those without a buddy.
E: At the end of the program, adolescents with a ‘buddy’ smokes significantly less to the control group without a ’buddy’. This suggests that social support can be used to help young people resist social influence.
L: Therefore, it can be used in a real life setting, increasing the study’s ecological validity .

P: One strength social support of is that there is research evidence to support the role of dissenting peers in resisting social pressure.
E: Gamson et al. (1982) found that when participants were asked to support a smear campaign for an oil company and allowed group discussion, 29 out of 33 (88%) disobeyed the orders.
E: These findings suggest that social support (the discussion in the group) decreases the level of obedience. This is because it made participants more confident in their answers.
L: Therefore, this suggests that social support is valid explanation to resisting social influence as there is research evidence to support it.

P: One strength of LOC is that there is research support.
E: Holland (1967) repeated Milgram’s baseline study and measured their LOC. He found that 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock, compared to only 23% of externals.
E: This suggests internals are less likely to obey destructive authority because they perceive themselves as having personal control over decisions opposed to externals who believe other factors (such as other ppl) influence decisions.
L: This therefore, suggests that a person’s locus of control has at least some impact on their likelihood of resisting social influence, increasing the validity of this explanation.

P: one weakness of Loc is that it doesnt explain all forms of resistance to social influence
E: Twenge et al. (2004) analysed data from American LOC studies over a 40 year time period, and found that people became more resistant to obedience, but at the same time showed more external of an external Loc.
E: These findings are contradictory to the LoC explanation for resistance, which argues that participants with an external LoC should be more obedient, rather than less.
L: This therefore suggests that LoC doesn’t explain