Resistance to social influence

• AO1 social support

  Cnnformity: Occurs when someone else is not following the majority. Acts as a model for the individual to be free to follow their own conscious. Snowball effect - shows majority is no longer unanimous.

  Obedience: Occurs when there is someone else not obeying. 65% to 10% when there was a disobedient confederate with the PPT. Acts as a model, freeing him to act on his own conscious. Also challenges legitimacy of authority, easier to disobey.
• AO1 Locus of control

  The sense of what we believe directs our lives, internal or external:

  • External - Outside forces beyond their control governes what happens to them(e.g. luck)
  • Internal - They are responsible for what happens to them
  • Continuum - Vary's on a scale from internal to external

  Internal locus of control has greater resistance - dosen't depend on others for their opinions, base own decisions on own beliefs. Also characteristics of internals (Self-confident, achievement-oriented and higher intelligence) - more often leaders, don't require social approval.
• AO3 Research support for social support

  Teen Fresh Start USA - 8 week programme resistance of pregnenat teens to smoke. Those with a buddy (encourages not smoking) were less likely to smoke compared to control without a buddy. Socal support has real world application, used as intervention to help young people.
• AO3 Research support for dissenting peers (social support)

  Told to produce evidence for an oil company to run a smear campaign. 88% (29/33) rebelled against orders as they were in groups of 2/3 so could discuss. Shows that peer support leads to disobedience by undermining legitimacy of authority. Increases reliability.
• AO3 research support for Locus of control (LOC)

  Link between LOC and resistance. Milgrams study repeated and measured PPTS on locus of control scale. 37% for internal compared to 24% externals disobeyed. Internals showing greater resistance. Predicted by the locus of control theory, supporting evidence increases validity of the theory.
• AO3 contradictory evidence for locus of control (LOC)

  Challenges link between LOC and resistance. Data analysis fro 40 studies on locus of control. Over time, people became more external, allong with less obedient. This contradicts the predictions, as you would think if resistance increases than so would the proportion of internals. Suggests its not a valid explanation to show resistance.