Resisting social influence

• locus of control: the extent to which an individual believes that events in their life are determined by their own efforts or by forces outside of their control.
• external locus of control: when an individual believes that their behaviour and experiences are determined by external factors outside of their control (eg. fate)
• internal locus of control: when an individual believes that experiences and behaviour is determined by their own efforts, is their own responsibility and is in their control.
• Acquiescence bias: a tendency to agree with items on a questionnaire.
• Problems with questionnaires: leading questions make it biased and opinionated. They often influence and encourage positive answers using ‘should’ or ‘ought to’.
• Situational factors: external influences that affect the behaviour of an individual.
• social support: the perception that an individual has assistance available from others and are supported by a social network.
• Asch found that having social support allows an individual to resist influence from the majority. In a variation of his study there was a confederate ally of the ppt, reducing conformity from 33% to 5%. This allows the ppt to feel more independent against the majority view.
• resisting obedience: disobedient confederates become a role model to the ppts. Shown in a variation of Milgram‘s study, defiant confederates in a team with the ppt caused obedience to drop from 65% to 10%.