resistance to social influence

• social support 


  • asch shows is there is a non conforming ally then conformity drops, however if the model then started to conform then the P also conformed so the change is short lived
  • allen and levine replicated his experiment but dissenter wore thicker glasses (implying worse vision)
  • they found conformity dropped in real Ps showing its not because they were relying on info he gave but that the dissenter enables Ps to free themselves from group pressure
  • milgram - P paired with disobedient model
• other explanations for resisting social influence

  • questioning the status and legitimacy of person giving the order
  • increasing sense of responsibility
• locus of control


  the sense we each have about what directs events in our lives. internals belive that they are mostly responsible for what happens to them and externals belive it is mainly a matter of luck or other forces
• how is locus of control relevant to independent behaviour?


  • internals are more likely to resist pressure to conform / obey than externals. may have more self confidence = less need for social approval than others
  • externals are vulnerable to the opinions and behaviours of others = no point resisting
• oliner and oliner

  • interviewed 2 groups of non jewish people who lived through holocaust and nazi germany
  • compared 406 people who had protected and rescued jews from nazis and 126 people who had not done this
  • found the group that rescued the jews had scores demonstrating an internal locus of control
• blass

  • carried out meta analysis of a number of variations of milgrams study and found Ps with an internal locus of control were more likely to act independently
  • however he noted it was difficult to make any clear conclusions as research evidence was mixed
• twenge

  analysed data from american studies of obedience and found that resistance to obedience has increased over time but so has externality
• rotter

  argues that locus of control is more important in new situations , in familiar situations we tend to refer back to previous experience