resistance to social influence

• Social Support:

  Those with social support can be more confident and will not fear rejection or ridicule. This means they are more likely to resist conformity and remain independent.

  • Conformity: when a confederate gave a correct answer in Asch's study the conformity dropped to 5%.
  • Obedience: when the ppt was paired with two other teachers, (confederates) who refused to go on, the number of people who went to 450v dropped to 10%.
• Locus of control:

  LOC refers to a person's perception of personal control over their own behaviour. It is measured along a dimension of 'high internal' to 'high external'. High internals are active seekers of information that is useful to them, so rely less on the opinions of others. They take responsibility for their own actions and base decisions on their own beliefs and so resist pressures from others. High internals are more self confident and do not need social approval.

  Oliner & Oliner (1998) found that those who resisted orders in Nazi Germany were more likely to have high internal locus of control.