Resistance to Social Influence

• Social Support:

  • They have other people around them resisting the pressures and not conforming or obeying, making them freer and more likely to do the same.
  • This person acts as a ‘model’.
  • Asch’s research shows this as when someone else does not follow the majority, it appears to enable a person to be free to follow their conscience.
  • Milgram’s variations: the rate of obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the genuine participant was joined by a disobedient confederate.
• Social Support: Ganson et al (1982):

  • Found higher levels of resistance in their obedience study as compared to Milgram’s.
  • Participants were in groups when being asked to shock the learner and 29 out of 33 groups (88%) rebelled.
• Social Support: Asch's Variations:

  • 3 confederates:
  • Conformity to the wrong answer rises to 31.8%.
  • This new dissenting confederate meant conformity was reduced by a 1/4.
  • If the line Task was more difficult, the conformity increased.
• Locus of control:

  • Rotter (1966) proposed the idea of locus of control.
  • External Locus of Control:
  • Individuals believe that their behaviour is guided by fate, luck or other external circumstances.
  • Internal Locus of Control:
  • Individuals believe that their behaviour is guided by their personal decisions and efforts.
• Locus of Control: Holland (1967):

  • Repeated Milgram’s initial study and measured whether participants were internals or externals.
  • He found that 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level, therefore showing some resistance to social pressure.
  • Only 23% of externals did not continue to the highest shock level.
• Locus of Control: Oliner and Oliner (1998):


  • Non-Jewish survivors of WWII were interviewed and compared those who had resisted orders and protected Jewish people from the Nazis, in comparison to those who had not.
  • Found that the 406 ‘rescuers’, who had resisted orders, were more likely to have a higher internal locus of control, in comparison to the 126 people who had simply followed orders.
• Locus of Control AO3: Strength:

  • There is research evidence that internals are less obedient.
  • Holland (1967):
  • He repeated Milgram’s initial study and measured whether participants were internals or externals.
  • He found that 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level, therefore showing some resistance to social pressure.
  • Only 23% of externals did not continue to the highest shock level.
  • This suggests that the internals showed greater resistance to authority and therefore to social pressure.
  • These findings increase the validity of locus of control as an explanation for resistance to social influence.
  • Furthermore, this idea is backed up by Oliner and Oliner (1998).
• Locus of Control AO3: Weakness:

  • One weakness is that the development of the idea of locus of control was found under biased conditions.
  • For example, cultural relativism.
  • For example, gender bias.
  • It is possible that the relationship between locus of control and resistance to social pressure may be different in other countries and places.
  • However, it can be argued that despite this, it is still overall helpful due to the longitudinal nature of the study.