explanations of resistance to social influence

• some people can be resistant to social influence. This can be explained by the locus of control.
• the locus of control is the measure of an individuals sense of control in their life. For example, if they believe their life is controlled by free will vs fate.
• if you were internal, this mean that you believe your behaviour is caused by personal decisions. This means that higher internal individuals could be seen as leaders as they are less likely to conform or obey.
• if you were external, it shows that you believe your behaviour is due to fate. This meant that they believed their life is beyond control. Furthermore, external people were more likely to act on behalf of peoples orders, which is an example of agentic state
• in studies, we can see that social support causes a resistance to social influence
• for example, during aschs variations, he recorded that when a participant had a partner to share answers with, the levels of conformity dropped. This was due to the confidence gained by the participant. FURTHERMORE, aschs variation shows that social support decreases the level of conformity.
• during milgrims study, 2 confederates disobeyed the man with the lab coats order. This also caused the level of obedience to reduce 10%. Because of this, we can see that the social support provided by the confederates, decreases the level of obedience, disobeying the position of authority.