Resisting Social Control

• What are the two explanations os resistance to social influence?

  • Social support
  • Locus of control
• What is social support?

  Where pressure to Conform/obey is reduced if other people are not conforming/disobeying
• Evidence for social support?

  Asch - conformity study, a dissenter (even if wrong answer) acts as a model to free people
• Evidence for social support:

  • Disobedience
  • Milgram - obedient behaviour decreased in the disobedient peer condition, from 65% to 10%
• Why does obedience decrease with a disobedient model?

  The disobedient model challenges the legitimacy of the authority figure
• What is locus of control?


  The extent to which someone believes they are in control of their life
• Who described Locus of Control?

  Rotter 1966
• What are the two types of LOC?

  • Internal
  • External
• What do internals believe?

  Things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves
• What do externals believe?

  Things that happen to them are outside their control, place things down to luck or fate
• Who shows greater resistance to social influence?

  Internals
• Why are internals more likely to resist social influence?

  • They take personal responsibility for their actions so are more likely to base their decisions on their own beliefs.
  • More confident, more achievement-orientated and have greater intelligence, these are traits which lead to greater resistance
• Strength of Social Support:

  • Real world research support
  • Having a 'buddy' helps resist peer pressure to smoke (Albrecht et al)
• Strength of Social Control:

  • Research support for dissenting peers
  • Obedience to an order from oil company fell when Ps in a group (Gamson et al)
• Strength of Locus of Control:

  • Research Support
  • Internals less likely to fully obey in Milgram type procedure (Holland)
• Limitation of Locus of Control:

  • Contradictory Research
  • People now more independent but also more external (Twenge et al)
• Limitation of Locus of Control:

  • Limited role of LOC
  • Role of LOC only applies to new situations (Rotter)