Social Support

• Resistance to social influence occurs when the individual decides...

  • Not to conform to the majority
  • Not to obey the orders of an authority figure
• If someone else resists they too do not conform/obey, then this constitutes social support which allows an individual to follow their conscience and go against the group/authority.
• The Asch variation of unanimity explored the idea of social support. When confederates chose a different answer to the group conformity decreased to 5%.
• Milgrams obedience research involved one variation in which there was at least one disobedient confederate. In this experiment 90% of participants dropped out before reaching 450 volts.
• Rank & Jacobson replicated Hoflings study:

  • A doctor telephoned 18 different nurses and asked each nurse to administer a non-lethal dose of Valium.
  • The nurses were able to discuss the doctors order with other nurses, only 2 of the 18 nurses immediately followed the order.
  • Thus, social support is a key factor in resisting social influence as the nurses were able to discuss the order first
• A limitation of social support is that it cannot be applied to everyone. Some people will always obey, regardless of cirumstances. Others will never obey regardless of circumstances. Thus social support argument does not account for individual differences