resisting social influence

• Not everyone will conform or obey in all situations.

  People may resist pressures of social influence (to conform or obey) if they have social support or if they have an internal locus on control.
• internal locus of control -

  • People feel they have control over the events & have more confidence and need little approval from others.
  • These people are less likely to conform or obey.
• external locus of control -

  • People feel they have little/no control over their lives and often believe in ‘luck’ or ‘fate
  • They believe that what happens to them is determined by external factors so are more likely to conform or obey.
• strength -

  Holland (1967) repeated Milgram's study and measured pps LOC. They found 37% of internals resisted orders (didn’t go to 450 volts) where as only 23% of externals did.

  This suggests resistance is related to LOC, increasing the validity of LOC as an explanation of disobedience
• weakness -

  Twenge (2004) analysed LOC studied over a 40 year period and found people have become more resistant to obedience but also more external.

  This contradicts the idea that those with external LOC are more obedient and suggests LOC is not a valid explanation of how people resist social influence
• One reason that people can resist the pressure to conform or obey is having social support -  someone supporting their point of view.
• strength -

  In an American program to help pregnant teens smoke smoking, the teens were provided a social support mentor and at the end of the programme were less likely to smoke than a control group.

  This shows that social support can help young people resist social influence as part of interventions in the real world
• strength -

  In a study similar to Asch’s line task, when there was 1 dissenter with ‘good eyesight’, 64% of pps resisted conformity.

  Suggests that having social support, even by just 1 person, people are able to resist conformity