2 explanations of resistance to Social influence

• Social Support - Conformity 

  • Social support can help people resist conformity
  • The pressure to conform can be reduced if there are other people present who are not conforming
  • In Asch’s variation study, the introduction of an ally who also gave the correct answer (and so appeared to resist the majority) caused conformity levels to drop sharply.
  • Social support breaks the unanimous position of the majority.
  • Presence of an ally makes an individual more confident in their decision and better able to stand up to majority
• obedience

  • People are more likely to resist if there is another person seen to disobey. 
  • In one of Milgram’s variations, when the participant was joined by an ally who disobeyed the experimenter, obedience rates fell from 65% to just 10%
  • Individuals are more confident in disobeying if there is an ally who is also willing to disobey the authority figure
  • The other person’s disobedience acts as a ‘model’ for the individual to copy that frees them to act as they wish.
• 2) Locus of Control

  Locus of control is a concept concerned with internal control versus external control

  • Those with an internal locus of control believe the things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves.
  • “I did well in an exam because I worked hard”
  • Externals have a tendency to believe that things happen without their own control
  • “I did well in the exam because I was lucky” 
• Locus of control and resisting social influence

  • People who have an internal LOC are more likely to resist pressure to conform or obey 
  • This is because they 
  • take responsibility for their actions and are more likely to base their decisions on their own beliefs
  • tend to be more confident with less need for social approval
  • Are better able to resist coercion from others
• Social Support's Role in Resistance to Social Influence

  • Research supports the power of social support in resistance.

  • Allen and Levine's 1971 Asch type study shows conformity decreases when a dissenting confederate resists majority.

  • People resist conformity if supported by someone, even if their view is invalid.
• Internals’ characteristics 

  • There is research to support locus of control as an explanation for resistance to social influence
  • Internals have various characteristics that help them to resist obedience, compared to externals
  • Hutchins and Estey (1978) found that high internals are better able to resist coercion from others, compared to externals
  • These findings indicate that having an internal locus of control is a powerful factor in resisting social influence
• • A strength of using social support to resist pressures to obey is that it can be seen in the real world
  • In 1943, a group of German women protested in Berlin where the Gestapo (Nazi secret police) were holding 2000 Jewish men.
  • The Gestapo threatened to open fire if they did not disperse
  • Despite the threats, the women gave each other support and eventually this led to the Jews being freed
  • This illustrates Milgram’s finding that a disobedient confederate gives a person the confidence and courage to resist obeying
• People are more external than they used to be 

  • A limitation of LOC as an explanation of resistance to social influence is that not all research supports the link between LOC and resistance
  • Twenge et al. (2004) analysed data from American locus of control studies between 1960 and 2002) 
  • They found that people had become more independent but also more external
  • This contradicts the LOC explanation of obedience because, if this explanation is correct, then we would expect that as people became more independent, they also became more internal (not external)