resistance to social influence

• External locus of control

  Belief that things that happen to them are out of their control
• External locus of control example

  • Blaming the teacher for doing bad on an exam
• Internal locus of control

  Belief that things that happen to them are due to their own actions and are in their control
• Internal locus of control example 


  • Saying they did bad on an exam because they didn't study enough
• Locus of control continuum

  Range from high external locus of control to high internal locus of control
• Locus of control continuum


  • High external locus of control at one end
  • High internal locus of control at the other end
• Rotter designed a questionnaire


  To measure locus of control
• High internal locus of control


  More resistance to social influence
• Rotter's questionnaire has been validated in many studies
• Twenge et al did a meta-analysis of LOC studies from across 40 years, found resistance increased overtime and so did external LOC
• The meta-analysis suggests LOC is not a valid explanation for resisting social influence
• The effect of LOC depends on the situation and only has a significant effect in new situations
• This decreases the validity of the LOC explanation
• Holland repeated Milgram's study and measured whether participants had an internal or external LOC, internal LOC resisted obeying 37% of the time and external LOC only 23%
• This shows a correlation between internal LOC and disobedience, providing validity for the LOC explanation
• Social support


  If people feel as if they have support in their actions they are more likely to resist
• Social support in Conformity

  • Someone else not following the majority
  • No longer unanimous
• Asch found conformity dropped when there was social support
• Social support in Obedience

  • Support of someone else disobeying
  • Milgram found obedience dropped to 10% when there was a disobeying person
• Supporting evidence from Conformity

  • Asch's experiment - when one confederate gave the correct answer, conformity dropped to 5.5%
• Supports that..

  • Social support decreases the pressure to conform
  • Allows people to resist conformity
• Supporting evidence from Obedience

  • Milgram's experiment - when participants were paired with a confederate who refused to give the shock, obedience fell to 10%
• Supports that…

  • Social support decreases the pressure to obey
  • Allows people to resist obedience