Resistance to social influence

• Dispositional explanations for obedience - The authoritarian personality:

  • Dispositional explanation - internal explanations (personality factors/individual reasons) why someone obeys.
• Adorno (1950) found that one particular characteristic that people may have is the authoritarian personality. People with this trait are more likely to obey, and such traits can be measured using the F-scale. This requires participants to rate the extent of their own agreement to certain statements using a Likert-style scale (e.g. ”Respect for authority and parents are some of the most important values which a child can learn”).
• The authoritarian personality is when you believe that people should completely obey or submit to their authority figures and suppress their own beliefs. Such individuals have a ‘fixed’ cognitive style, where they do not challenge stereotypes due to their tendency to adopt absolutist thinking. This accordance with stereotypes prevents any grey areas emerging from uncertainty.
• Adorno believed in the psychodynamic theory (that a person’s personality traits and attitudes as an adult stemmed from childhood influences). He found that a child with overly harsh parents would displace their anger (from parents) onto ‘inferior’ others, through the process of scapegoating.

  • Surface level = idolise their parents
  • Unconsciously = fear and despise them, and so arises the need to displace such anger.

  This is known as reaction formation and is often seen in current politics.
• Limitation of the authoritarian personality

  • Acquiescence bias - all questions worded in the same direction.
  • Politically biased - very right wing and does not account for left wing authoritarianism.
• Limitation of the authoritarian personality:

  • Little ecological validity - Cannot explain many real-life examples of mass obedience. For example, it is very unlikely that the whole German population during Nazi occupation had an Authoritarian Personality, but rather many shared the same struggles in life and displaced their fear about the future onto a perceived ‘inferior’ group of people, through the process of scapegoating. This means that such a theory is a limited explanation for some examples of obedience.
• Locus of control:

  • Rotter (1966) - A measurement of an individual’s sense of control over their lives (i.e to what extent they feel that events in their lives are under their own personal control, versus under the control of other external powers like fate).
• Interal (more control) - Behaviour is caused by their own personal decisions and effort.
• External (less control) - Behaviour is caused by luck or fate.
• A person with more internal locus of control tend to conform and obey less as they take more responsibility for their actions. They are more likely to be leaders than followers.
• A person with high external locus of control believe that the majority of their life is determined by external factors, such as luck or fate. They are more likely to act on behalf of others and shift responsibility to them. More susceptible towards obedience.
• Strength of the locus of control theory:

  • Supporting evidence - Atgis (1998) conducted a meta analysis of studies considering locus of control and likeliness to conform. Those who scored higher on the eternal locus of control were more easily persuaded and likely to conform, suggesting having an external locus of control leads to greater conformity rates.
• Strength of the locus of control theory:

  • Supporting evidence - Oliner and Oliner (1988) interviewed two groups of non-Jewish people who lived through the holocaust, 406 people who protected and rescued Jews, 126 who did not. The rescuers had a high internal locus of control and scored higher on measures of social responsibility.
• Limitation of the locus of control theory:

  • Limited explanations - Only valid for novel situations, as suggested by Rutter. Previous experiences are more influential of LOC when a person is making a decision as to how to act. This means LOC is a limited explanation for only some cases of obedience.
• Social support for the locus of control theory:

  • Asch found that when a confederate gave a correct answer, conformity dropped to 1/4 of what they were when the majority was unanimous. This gave them more confidence in their own perception through social support and providing them with an alternative source of information. This suggests resistance to obedience in this case would be due to social support (like NSI and ISI).
• Social support for the locus of control theory:

  • Asch's idea was supported by Milgram's study where there were 2 extra confederates who disobeyed the experimenter's orders. The presence of the 2 extras caused levels of obedience to reduce by 10%, showing social support provided by others was enough for them to gain confidence to reject the position of the person in authority.
• Social support for the locus of control theory:

  • Gamson et all gave support to the idea that larger groups provide a stronger support system, making resistance much easier. When participants were placed in groups, 88% resisted the pressure to conform to the same smear campaign which other confederates had developed. This demonstrates the significance of influence of social support systems.
• Strength of the authoritarian personality:

  • Supporting evidence - Elms and Milgram (1966) followed 20 males who gave the highest shock levels, and 20 who refused. They were all given the F-Scale and the obedient males scored highly, suggesting they had an authoritarian personality. They also tended to dehumanise the learner and view the experimenter as respected and trustworthy.