resistance to social influence

• resistance to social influence is the ability of people to withstand social pressure to conform to majority/obey authority

  • influenced by situational (external - divorced parents) and dispositional (internal - personality trait) factors
• there are 2 explanations for resistance to social influence

  • social support
  • locus of control (LOC)
• social support relates to presence of people (act as models to show others resistance to social influence is possible) who resist pressures to conform/obey that can help others do the same
• conformity can be reduced by using social support through dissenting peers

  • e.g. asch conformity - found it reduced to 5.5% when one of the confederates gave different answers
  • social support breaks the unimaginous position of majority
• obedience can be reduced using social support by one other dissenting partner

  • dissenters disobedience frees individual to act on own conscience
  • e.g. milgrams study into obedience - obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when ptt was joined by disobedient confederate - independent behaviour (not following authoritative figure) had increased from 35% to 90% in disobedient peer condition
  • people are more confident to resist obedience if they can find ally whos willing to join them
• application - social support aiding resistance to social influence

  • rosenstrasse protest
  • 1943 - german women protested in berlin about gestapo holding 2000 jewish men - wanting to be released
  • women stood in front of gestapo agents despite threats of being shot - womens courage provided and set jews free
  • being among friends they were able to risk death together as result of social support - less scared as they had allys to rebel with
• evaluation for resistance to social influence

  • research support - resistance to conformity
  • research support - resistance to obedience
• research support - resistance to conformity eval point

  • researchers found independence when there is one dissenter in asch type of study
  • resistance isnt motivated by following what someone else says but it does enable someone to be free of pressure from group
• research support - resistance to obedience eval point

  • researcher found high levels of resistance in their study than milgrams
  • ptts had to produce evidence to help oil company run a 'smear campaign' (plan to discredit public gigure by making false accusations)
  • 29/33 groups of ptts rebelled
  • shows peer support is linked to greater resistance
• locus of control is the sense we have about what directs events in our lives - concerned with internal and external
• internal locus of control - believe they are mostly responsible for what happens to them
• external locus of control - believe things happen without own control
• external locus of control - believe things happen without own control
• people with internal locus of control are more likely to be able to resist pressure to conform/obey

  • if someone takes personal responsibility for own actions/experiences theyre more likley to base their decisions on their own beliefs
• high internal locus of control = more self confident, achievement oriented - personality traits lead to greater resistance to social influence
• evaluation for locus of control

  • research support - resistance to obedience
  • contradictory research
• research support - resistance to obedience for locus of control eval point

  • researcher repeated dstudy and measured whether ptts were internal/external
  • 37% internals didnt continue to highest shock (showed independence)
  • 23% externals did not continue
  • internals showed greater resistance - increases validity of LOC
• contradictory research as eval point for locus of control

  • meta analysis has shown over 40 years that resistance to social influence has increased but so has external loc
  • opposite to what LOC suggests