Explaination of Resistance to Social Influence

• Resistance to social influence occurs when an individual decides: not to conform to the majority and not obey the orders of an authority figure- involves a certain degree of risk
• If someone resists the social norm then this constitutes social support which allows an individual to follow their conscience and go against the group
• Locus of control (LOC) refers to the extent to which someone believes that they have control over, and responsibility for, their lives rather than tributary it to external factors- Rotter 1966 designed scale to measure LOC
• High internal LOC is evident in people who feel they have a lot of control over their lives and responsibility for their behaviour- able to resist pressure to conform as they adhere to a high set of standards they have designed for themselves
• People with internal LOC tend to be self- confident, intelligent and achievement- oriented
• High external LOC is evident in people who feel that they have no control over their lives and assume a lack of responsibility for their behaviour- less able to resist social pressure and believe external factors determine their life
• People with external LOC tend to feel: insecure and have a high need for social approval
• Strengths of LOC:

  • strong research to support the theory (Holland 1967 repeated Milgram‘s experiment and found that 37% of ppt who refused o continue to 450 volts had an internal LOC VS 24% of ppt with external LOC)- validity to the idea that internal LOC linked with resistance of authoryt
• Limitations of LOC:

  • argument that social support enables people to resist social influnce is not applicable to all- some obey regardless others may disobey regardless
  • Rotter (1982) found that LOC only seems to apply to new iterations- if someone has obeyed in a situation once they will continue to do so regardless of external/ internal LOC- reduce validity of theory