Psychology AS: Social Influence Revision

Explanations Of Resistance To Social Influence

Social Support: Resistance to conformity is more likely if others are seen to resist. This may be because the unanimity of the group is broken, giving the observer more confidence to maintain their own view.

Resistance to obedience occurs when the person receiving the order in paired with a disobedient role model. This causes the observer to question the status and legitimacy of the order.

Locus of Control: This refers to whether or not a person believes they have control over their lives. They theory was developed by Rotler and is measured using the locus of control scale, a self report questionnaire.

-Someone with a high score is said to have a strong EXTERNAL locus of control and is likely to believe that whatever happens to them is controlled by external forces such as fate.

-Someone with a low score in said to  have a strong INTERNAL locus of control and is likely to believe that whatever happens to them is the result of their own actions and behaviour.

The people with a high internal locus of control are active seekers of information and are less likely to rely on the opinions of others:

-The are more likely to be leaders themselves, rather than feel the need to follow others.

Therefore it is suggested that people with a high internal locus of control are more likely to resist social influence than those with a high external locus of control.

Evaluation Of Explanations For Resistance

A strength is that there is evidence to support the idea that people with a high internal locus of control are more likely to resist social influence. Oliner and Oliner (1998) interviewed non-Jewish survivors of WW2 and compared those who had resisted authority and protected Jewish people from the Nazis who did not. Oliner and Oliner found that the 406 'rescuers' who has resisted authority were more likely to have a high internal locus of control, in comparison to the 126 people who had simply followed orders. These results support the idea that  a high internal locus of control is associated with a resistance to obedience.

A limitation of the explanation of resisting social control is that most of the research conducted in this area involves trival tasks, so whether or not participants conform may not seem important in the studies, making it easier for participants to go along with the group. This is a limitation because researchers may not have measured what they had intended to therefore it is impossible to generalise the findings to real life settings.