Resistance to social influence

Elms & Milgram (1966)

Altemeyer(1981)

Milgram (1963) Asch (1956) Blass (1999)

Reicher & Haslam (2006)

Adorno (1950)

Bushman (1988)

Perrin & Spencer (1980)

Zimbardo (1971)

IN PAIRS… DESCRIBE YOUR STUDY IN 50-100 WORDS

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

RESISTING SOCIAL INFLUENCE

SOCIAL SUPPORT (SITUATIONAL ARGUMENT)

LOCUS OF CONTROL (DISPOSITIONAL ARGUMENT)

EVALUATION

THE LITERATURE SO FAR…

• Asch:

“ 33% of us will not speak out about what they truly believe and will opt for fitting in with the crowd instead…”

• Milgram:

“65% of us are capable of killing another human being just because someone in a white coat tolf us to…”

• Zimbardo:

“We are all capable of behaving aggressively towards another human being if we are given a higher status, uniform and the opportunity…”

WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO RESIST SOCIAL INFLUENCE?

SITUATIONAL FACTORS...

• One situational factor that might influence an individual resisting social influence is…

• Social Support.

SOCIAL SUPPORT & RESISTING CONFORMITY

• Asch (1956)

• Variation with 1 confederate instructed to give the correct answer

• Conformity dropped from 33% of majority trials incorrect…

• …to 5.5%


• Why does Social Support have such an effect on resisting conformity?

It breaks the unanimous position of the majority.


It breaks the unanimous position of the majority.

• Around 8:00 p.m. on the evening of the murder the defendant and his father had an argument. The father hit the defendant at least twice. The father apparently had hit the defendant many times prior to this night. Shortly after this violent encounter the defendant left the apartment.

• The defendant, whose mother had died when he was nine, had a troubled past. He had been in reform school. He had been arrested for a mugging. Twice he had been in knife fights. At approximately midnight a woman who lived in an apartment across the elevated train tracks from the father’s apartment awoke from her sleep. Through the windows of a noisy passing train, she saw a man stabbing the father in the chest. Immediately after the attack ended, the lights in the father’s apartment went out. The woman called the police and identified the defendant as the assailant.

• An old man who lived in the apartment below the father’s apartment testified that at approximately the same time that the woman witnessed the stabbing, he heard the defendant yell “I’ll kill you” and a “second” later heard a body hit the floor. He got up from his bed, went to the door, and saw the defendant running down the stairs.

• The defendant returned to his father’s apartment at approximately 3:00 a.m. in the morning. The police questioned him in the kitchen. He claimed he had gone to see some friends shortly after leaving the apartment follow- ing the 8:00 p.m. argument with his father. He later testified at trial that he went to the movies alone at about 11:00 p.m., returning home at 3:00 a.m. to find the police in his father’s apartment. He could not remember the titles of the movies or their plots and he could not identify any witnesses who saw him at the theatre.

• The defendant admitted that shortly after the 8:00 p.m. fight with his father he went to a store and bought an “unusual” switchblade knife that appeared identical to the one found embedded in his father’s chest. When he later met his friends he showed them the knife. After leaving his friends to go to the movies alone, he lost the knife when it fell through a hole in his pocket. His friends testified at trial that the knife removed from the father’s chest was the one that the defendant had shown them.

JUROR #8

• Juror 8 found and brought with him a knife identical to the one used in the murder

• Train noise would have prevented him from hearing the boy’s voice

• The boy may have forgotten the movie title because of the highly charged emotional setting


1. It breaks the unanimous position of the majority…

2. It raises the possibility of other, equally legitimate, ways of thinking or responding


3. The ally provides the individual with confidence in their decision and better able to stand up to the majority.

SOCIAL SUPPORT & RESISTING OBEDIENCE

• Milgram (1963)

• Variation with 2 confederate ‘teachers’ refusing to continue

• Percentage of ppts went from 65%…

• …to 10%


• Gives us more confidence in our ability to resist the temptation to obey


• Disobedient peers act as role models on which the individual can model their own behaviour


• ‘Opens our eyes’ to the (harmful) acts we are committing at the order of an authority figure.

EVALUATION OF SOCIAL SUPPORT ARGUMENT…

• Real world application

• In 1943, Rosenstrasse, Berlin

• German women protest in the street for the release of 2000 Jewish men and children being held there.

• They were threatened with open-fire from the Nazi-Gestapo but eventually the women prevailed


• These women defied the Nazi regime together.

• “Normally people were too afraid to show dissent, but on the street they knew they were among friends because they were risking death together”


• Dependent on order of response…

• Allen & Levine (1969)

• Replicated Asch’s expriment with the presence of a defiant confederate

• The defiant confederate either responded first or fourth…




• Social support may only be effective dependent on the proximity of the ally


• Dependent on validity of the ally…


• Replicated Asch’s study with a defiant confederate giving the first response

• The defiant confederate either wore glasses or didn’t…


Allen & Levine (1969)

EXAM PREP…

• Explain the role of social support in resisting social influence

(6 marks)

WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO RESIST SOCIAL INFLUENCE?

DISPOSITIONAL FACTORS...

• One dispositional factor that might influence an individual resisting social influence is…

• Locus of Control

LOCUS OF CONTROL

• A person’s perception of personal control over their own behaviour

• Measures from High Internal to High External

LOCUS OF CONTROL

• A strong internal locus of control

• Belief that you can control events in your life

• What happens to you is a consequence of your own ability and efforts

• More likely to be independent and less reliant on others

LOCUS OF CONTROL

• A strong external locus of control

• Belief that you cannot control events in your life

• What happens to you is determined by external factors (others; fate; God; luck etc.)

• Things that happen to you are largely out of your control and you take less personal responsibility over your actions.

LOCUS OF CONTROL & RESISTING SOCIAL INFLUENCE

• High internals are active seekers of information. They are less likely to rely on the opinions of others. They are less

vulnerable to social influence


• High internals are more achievement-orientated and are natural ‘leaders’. They do not need to conform


• High internals are better able to resist coercion from others. Increased pressure increases the divide between

responses of high internals & high externals.


• A study into interrogation in mock prisoner of war camps found that high internal locus of control individuals were more

resilient when under pressure to reveal information

EVALUATION OF LOC ARGUMENT

• Avtgis (1998)

• Found a positive correlation between scores of external LOC and conformity; persuasion and social influence

• High Externals were more easily persuaded and influenced than High Internals


• Dependent on type of Social Influence…

• Spector (1983)

• Measure LOC in 157 undergraduates.

• Found a positive correlation between high External LOC and vulnerability to Normative social influence

• No significant correlation between LOC and Informational SI


• Greater external LOC but more resistant ?

• Twenge (2004) conducted a meta-analysis

• He found LOC scores had become increasingly more External over time

• Yet, research shows us that we are becoming more resilient in studies of social influence…

EXAM PREP…

• Explain the role of Locus of Control in resisting social influence

(6 marks)

• Outline and Evaluate the role of Social Support and Locus of Control in resisting social influence.

(12 marks)

PG. 31 RESEARCH METHODS…

• Ethics = DRIPC

• V R O S S

Science

Resistance to social influence