Resistance to social influence

• what is meant by social support?

  seeing other individuals resisting orders and the pressure to conform, this can increase an individuals confidence in resisiting social influence, both via pressures to conform and orders from authority figures.
• link social support to conformity?

  the pressure to conform can be reduced if there are other people who are not conforming. In Asch's variation on the original study conformity dropped from 37% to 5.5% when the participant was given a 'supporter
• link social support to obedience?

  the pressure to obey can also be reduced if there is someone else who disobeys. In Milgram's variation on the original study obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the participant was joined by a disobedient confederate.
• what is a situational explanation of resistance to social influence?


  social support
• what is a dispositional explanation for resistance to social influence?

  locus of control
• who developed the concept of locus of control?

  rotter (1966)
• what is meant by locus of control?

  a individuals sense of personal control over their lives. this can be measured on a scale, personalities range from high internal locus of control to high external locus of control
• what does it mean if someone has high external locus of control? are they more or less likely to resist social influence?


  they feel their life is controlled by external forces and feel little responisibility for their actions. they're less likely to resist social pressures
• what does it mean if someone has high internal locus of control? are they more or less likely to resist social influence?


  they believe that things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves, they feel a sense of responsibility for their actions and feel that their actions/choices dictate their life. theyre more likely to resist social influence
• what is a strength of social support? (supporting evidence)

  P) theres supporting evidence

  
  

  E) miligram found that obedience dropped significantly ,from 65% to 10%, when a 'disobedient' confederate was introduced into the situation. Furthermore, Asch found that conformity dropped ,from 37% to 5.5% ) when a confederate went against the majority.

  
  

  T) This evidence suggests that social support increases a person's likelihood of resisting social influence.
• what is a weakness of social support? (methodological issues)

  P) there are methodological issues with the research.

  
  

  E) Many of the studies that investigate the role of social support are conducted under CONTROLLED, ARTIFICIAL ENVIRONMENTS and involve UNREALISTIC TASKS. People may realize the aims of the study and may not behave naturally (e.g. they may be influenced by demand characteristics and perform in a way that they think the experimenter wants them to).

  
  

  T) This lowers the internal validity of the claim that social support influences resistance to social influences.
• What is a strength of locus of control? (Research support - Spector)


  P) research support. Spector used rotters Locus of control scale to determine whether locus of control is associated with conformity.

  
  

  E) Spector found that individuals with a high internal LOC were less likely to conform than those with a high external locus of control, but only in situations of NSI. There was no difference between the groups for ISI.

  
  

  T) This suggests that individuals with an internal locus of control are likely to resist social influence, especially in situations of nsi, supporting lOC as an explanation of resistance.
• What is another strength of locus of control? (Research support - Holland)


  P) further research support - support the link between LOC and resistance to obedience.

  
  

  E) Holland repeated the milligram study and measured whether participants were internal or externals, 37% of internals didn't continue to the highest shock level, compared to only 23% of externals not continuing. So internals showed greater resistance.

  
  

  T) this is a strength because it adds support to the explanation and increases the validity.
• what is a weakness of locus of control? (methodological issues)

  P) LOC is often measured using a questionares.

  
  

  E) Answers may not be accurate as people may feel pressured to give certain answers (e.g. demand characteristics; social desirability).

  
  

  T) Therefore, the questionnaire may not accurately reflect a persons' actual LOC and the internal validity is lower.