Resisting Social Influence

• resistance to social influence?

  refers to the ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or obey authority.
• social support?

  presence of people who resist pressures to conform or obey and these people help others to do the same by acting as models to show that resistance to social influence is possible.
• locus of control?

  the sense we each have about what controls the events in our lives.

  • those w/an internal LOC believe they are mostly responsible for what happens to them.
  • people w/an external LOC believe it's luck or factors outside of their control.
• social support?

  when someone else is not following the majority.

  • the pressure to conform can be more easily resisted if there are other people present who aren't conforming.
  • we saw this in asch's research w/the confederate who was not conforming; the naive p' felt more able to follow their own conscience when there was a confederate who was already dissenting (going against the majority).
• resisting obedience:

  • pressure to obey can be resisted if there is another person who is seen to disobey.
  • in one of milgram's variations, the rate of obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the genuine p' was joined by a disobedient confederate.
  • the person's disobedience acts as a 'model' of dissent for the p' to copy and this frees him to act from his own conscience.
• what does real-world research say about social support?

  • one strength is research evidence to support the role of dissenting peers in resisting obedience.
  • e.g. susan albrecht et al. (2006)- evaluated teen fresh start USA, 8-week programme to help pregnant adolescents (14-19) resist peer pressure to smoke. social support provided by slightly older mentor/buddy.
  • at the end of programme, adolescents who had a mentor were sig. less likely to smoke than a control group of p's who had no mentor.
  • shows that social support can help young people resist social influence as part of an intervention in the real-world.
• gamson et al. (1982):

  research into dissenting peers.

  • p's told to produce evidence that would be used to help an oil company run a smear campaign.
  • r's found higher levels of resistance in their study than milgram did in his. probably because p's were in groups so could discuss hat they were told to do.
  • 29/33 groups of p's (88%) rebelled against their orders.
  • shows that peer support can lead to disobedience by undermining the legitimacy of an authority figure.
• what are the 2 types of LOC and explain how they relate to social influence?

  • internal and external, individuals who feel a greater sense of personal agency & responsibility (internal locus) are less likely to be swayed by the actions/opinions of others.
  • in contrast, those w/external factors (ELOC) are more prone to conformity and obedience, as they perceive their own behaviour as being shaped by outside influences.
• holland (1967):

  • involved repeating milgram's obedience exp and found that p's w/a high ILOC were more resistant to obeying the experimenter, w/37% refusing to continue to the max shock level, compared to only 23% of those w/a high ELOC.
  • research supports LOC theory as an explanation for resistane, suggests individuals who believe they are personally responsible for their actions are less likely to be influenced by authority figures & more likely to assert their own will, increasing their resistance to obedience.