Resistance to social influence

• Rotter proposed the concept of locus of control. It is a concept concerned with internal control versus external control.
• Internals believe that the things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves (high internal locus of control).
• Externals have a tendency to believe that things happen without their own control as a result of luck or other outside forces.
• People differ in the way they explain their successes and failures but it isn't simply a matter of being internal or external. There is a continuum with high internal LOC at one end and high external LOC at the other end, with low internal and low external lying in between.
• People who have an in eternal LOC are more likely to be able to resist pressures to conform or obey (if a person takes personal responsibility for their actions they are more likely to base their decisions on their own beliefs and thus resist pressures from others).
• People with high internal LOC tend to be more self-confident, more achievement-orientated, have higher intelligence and less need for social approval. These personality traits lead to greater resistance to social influence.
• Social support can help people resist conformity. The pressure to conform can be reduced if there are other people present who are not conforming. As seen in Asch's study, the person not conforming doesn't have to be giving the 'right' answer but simply the fact that someone else is not following the majority appears to enable a person to be free to follow their own conscience.
• However, Asch's research also showed that if this 'non-conforming' person starts conforming again, so does the naïve participant. Thus the effect of dissent is not long lasting.
• Social support can also help people to resist obedience. In Milgram's variation the rate of obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the participant was joined by a disobedient confederate. The participant may not follow the disobedient person's behaviour but the point is their disobedience act as a 'model' for the participant to copy that frees him to act from his own conscience.
• Research support- resistance to conformity:

  Allen and Levine found that conformity decreased when there was one dissenter in an Asch-type study. This occurred even when the dissenter wore thick glasses and said he had difficulty with his vision. This supports the view that resistance is not just motivated by following what someone else says but it enables someone to be free of the pressure from the group.
• Research support- resistance to obedience


  Gamson et al. found higher levels of resistance in their study than Milgram. This was probably because the participants in Gamson's study were in groups. In Gamson's study, 29 out of 33 groups of participants (88%) rebelled. This shows that peer support is linked to greater resistance.
• Research support- LOC


  Holland repeated Milgram's baseline study and measured whether participants were internals or externals. He found that 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level whereas only 23% of externals did not continue. Internals showed greater resistance to authority. This increases the validity of the LOC explanation.
• Contradictory research- LOC


  Twenge et al.analysed data from American locus of control studies over a 40-year period. The data showed that people have become resistant to obedience but also more external. If resistance was linked to an internal LOC, we would expect people to become more internal. This challenges the link between internal LOC and increasing resistant behaviour. However, it is possible that the results are due to a changing society where many things are out of personal control.