Resistance to social influence

• social support: people can resist pressures to conform or obey when they receive social support. This is because having an ally (which they identify with) gives us confidence and support making it possible to resist the pressures to conform or obey and remain independent in our behaviour.

  • no longer fear being ridiculed, allowing them to avoid normative social influence
• Locus of control - is a personality trait that refers to a person's perception of personal control over their behaviour
• Internal locus of control - Believes what happens to them and their behaviour is caused by their own personal decisions and effort. Strong internal locus of control are more likely to remain independent in their behaviour and rely less on the opinions of others, able to resist social influence
• External locus of control - what happens to them is determined by external factors such as influence of other, luck and fate. Take less personal responsibility for their actions and are less likely to remain independent, less able to resist social influence
• Social support - AO3 · Research to support by Asch – when he varied his conformity (line task) study so that one confederate said the correct answer in the line task – giving the participant an ally – conformity decreased. This supports social support as it shows when they had an ally it gave them confidence to resist social influence
• Locus of control – AO3 · Research to support by Milgram and Elms – found those with an internal locus of control were less likely to obey to the full 450 volts in Milgram’s original study – demonstrating that because they take personal responsibility they were less likely to obey – supporting locus of control as a way of resisting social influence.