Resistance to social influence

• What are the explanations for resisting social influence?

  Locus of control + Social Support
• What is meant by social support?

  when another person (or small group) within a majority supports a person's actions/beliefs
• Who investigated social support and when?

  Asch variation (1956)

  Milgram variation (1961)
• What was the change for the social support variation in Asch's experiment?

  introduced an ally confederate (social support) who also gave the right answer
• What were the findings of the social support variation in Asch's experiment?

  conformity reduced to 5.5%
• Why is social support so effective in reducing conformity?

  it breaks up the unanimous position of the majority (which we know is a influencing factor from Asch's original experiment)
• What was the change for social support in Milgram's variation?

  introduction of another confederate who refused to continue shocking the learner
• What were the findings from the social support variation in Milgram's study?

  only 10% of people now continued to administer full voltage
• What is meant by locus of control?

  The extent to which individuals believe they have control over their own lives
• What are the types of locus of control?

  internal and external
• What is meant by internal locus of control?

  belief that they have control over their own life -> their behaviour determines their result
• What is meant by external locus of control?

  belief that they do not have complete control over their own life -> fate/destiny etc
• Which type of locus of control is more likely to resist social influence?

  Internal
• Which type of locus of control is more optimistic?

  internal
• Which type of locus of control is more likely to believe in luck or fate?

  external
• Who investigated the effect locus of control on resisting social influence and when?

  Holland (1967)
• What was the procedure for Holland's study of the effect of locus of control on resisting social influence?

  repeated Milgram's experiment but identified whether participants were internals or externals first
• What were the findings from Holland's study on the effect of locus of control on resisting social influence?

  ->37% of internals did not continue to highest shock level

  -> 23% of externals did not continue to highest shock level

  • internals resisted social influence more