Ability to refuse to followorders of even a legitimateauthority
Non-conformity
Independence -> doing what you wish rather than moving with/against social norms
OR anti-conformity -> adopting behaviour/norms atodds with those of main social groups
What are the two explanations of resistance to social influence?
Socialsupport
Locus of control
What is social support?
We are more able to resistpressure of socialinfluence if we have allies who also refuse to follow the crowd/authorityfigure
How does social support assist resistance to social influence?
Breaks unanimity of majority position
Allies act as rolemodels
Lessens impact of grouppressure
Reaffirms resistant individual's selfconfidence in their own judgement (Asch, 1956)`
What is locus of control?
Rotter (1966)
Extent to which people believe they are in control of + responsible for their own life rather than blaming external factors
Rotter'sFscale (F standing for fascist) measures LOC to assess extent to which someone has a predominantlyexternal or internal LOC
What is internal locus of control?
Feeling that you have control over your life + are responsible for your actions
People with ILOC = better at resisting social influence -> adhere to self-setstandards
People with ILOC tend to be confident, intelligent + achievement-oriented
What is external locus of control?
Feeling that you have littlecontrol over your life + are notresponsible for your actions
People with ELOC = lessable to resistsocialinfluence since they believe that externalfactors will influence their outcome
People with ELOC tend to be insecure, lackingconfidence + seek socialapproval
Social support A&E point 1: research evidence
Asch (1956) variation -> ppt provided with dissenting ally = conformity dropped from 31.8% to 5.5%
Allen + Levine (1971)-> presence of confederate resisting incorrectmajority answer = ppt conformitydecreased sharply
Even when this was invalid social support from someone with thickglasses + poorvision, undermining likelihood of their correctness
Milgram (1962) -> obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when ppt was in 3-person team in which 2 confederatesrefused to give higher shocks
Social support A&E point 2: research support = highlyartificial experiments -> difficult to generalise beyond lab BUT, this is an unfair criticism
Gamson et al. (1982) -> controlledobservation = 25/33 groups disobeyed order to consent to misleading + untrue video-recorded statement as part of a legaltrial
Ppts unaware of study = no demandcharacteristics
Conformity to social groups' self-constructed identities = fundamental to ppts' ability to resist obedience
Presence of allies = vital in resisting social influence -> this external factor is key in enabling resistance
Social support A&E point 3: previous A&E point is too simplistic
Milgram (1962) -> 35% ppts refused to give maximum shock level
Asch (1956) -> 24% ppts resisted conformity in any critical trials
Disobedient + independent ppts in exact same situation as those who did conform/obey -> internal factors must be significant = social support cannot be a complete explanation for resistance to social influence
LOC A&E point 1: research support
Milgram + Elms (1974) -> disobedient ppts had more internal locus of control than obedient ppts = what we would expect to see if Rotter's explanation to resistance is correct
Oliner + Oliner (1988) -> real-life findings = non-Jewish Germans who lived through Holocaust
Those who disobeyed + ignored Hitler's orders by protectingJews scored higher for internality + responsibility
Avtgis (1998) meta-analysis (large sample = more reliable) -> high correlation between internality/externality + extent to which people conformed
LOC A&E point 2: research support for LOC affecting obedience, but no agreement on LOC affecting conformity
Externals more likely to succumb to normative social influence
BUT, externals + internals' conformity is similar to informative social influence (Spector, 1983)
Don't overstate importance of locus of control when explaining resistance to all types of social influence!
LOC A&E point 3: Rotter himself acknowledged LOC not always mostimportantfactor in predicting resistance to social influence
Novelty of the scenario often ignored as factor affecting resistance -> familiar scenarios = continued behavioural patterns (usually a conformer = conform + vice versa) due to responding to environmentalcues that triggerrepeat behaviours
New scenarios = internality/externality has effect on behaviour = correlations between behaviour + LOC seen in studies
The situation in which someone is affects whether their LOC will lead them to resist or not