Resistance to social influence

• What is resistance to social influence?

  • The ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or obey authority
  • This is influenced by both situational (social support) and dispositional (locust of control) factors
• How does social support help resist conformity?

  • Pressure to conform can be resisted if there are other present people who don't conform
  • Someone else who is not following the majority acts as a 'model' of independent behaviour, freeing an individual to follow their own conscience
  • Their dissent gives rise to more dissent because it shows the majority is no longer unanimous
• How does social support help resist obedience?

  • Pressure to obey can be resisted if there are other disobedient people - Milgram's study saw obedience drop from 65% to 10% when the participant was joined by a disobedient confederate
  • Another person's disobedience acts as a 'model' of dissent for someone to copy and frees them to act on their own conscience
  • Disobedience also challenges the legitimacy of an authority figure making it easy for others to disobey too
• What is one strength of social support as a situational factor helping to resist social influence?

  • Real-world application: Albrecht et al. (2006) evaluated an 8-week programme called Teen Fresh Start USA to help pregnant teenagers aged 14-19 resist peer pressure to smoke
  • Social support was provided by an older mentor/ 'buddy'
  • Those who had a buddy were less likely to smoke than a control group who didn't have a buddy, showing that social support can help young people resist social influence to improve their lives
• What is another strength of social support as a situational factor helping to resist social influence?

  • Research support for dissenting peers: Gamson et al (1982)'s participants were told to produce evidence that would help an oil company run a smear campaign
  • Found higher levels of resistance because the ppts. were in groups and had social support - 88% rebelled against orders
  • Shows peer support can lead to disobedience by undermining the legitimacy of an authority figure
• What is a locus of control?

  • Rotter (1966) proposed this as a continuum conerned with internal control and external control - people can vary in these positions
  • Internal LOC - believe the things that happen to them are controlled by themselves
  • External LOC - believe the things that happen are out of their control
  • High internal LOCs are more able to resist social influence as they tend to base their decisions on their own beliefs rather than others, taking personal responsibility for their actions
  • They also tend to be more confident and have higher intelligence, leading to greater resistance to SI and have less need for social approval
• What is one strength of locus of control as a dispositional factor helping to resist social influence?

  • Research support: Holland (1967) repeated Milgram's baseline and measured whether participants had internal or external LOCs
  • Found that 37% of internals resisted and didn't continue to highest shock levels, whereas only 23% of externals did not continue
  • Internals showing greater resistance to authority increases the validity of LOC as an explanation of disobedience
• What is one limitation of locus of control as a dispositional factor helping to resist social influence?

  • Contrasting evidence: Twenge et al. (2004) analysed data from American LOC studies conducted over a 40 year period showing that people became more resistant to obedience but also more external
  • The theory would predict that if resistance is linked to an internal LOC we would expect people to become more internal, suggesting LOC is not a valid explanation of how people resist SI
• What is another limitation of locus of control as a dispositional factor helping to resist social influence?

  • Only valid for novel situations: Rotter (1982) points out that LOC isn't necessarily the most important factor in determining whether someone resists social influence
  • Previous experiences are always more influential than LOC when individuals are making decisions on how to act
  • Suggests LOC is a limited explanation for only some cases of (dis)obedience