4.1.1 - Resistance to social influence

What resistance means

This lesson explains why people sometimes withstand social pressure. In AQA Social Influence, the pressure may be pressure to conform to a majority or pressure to obey an authority figure. Resistance does not mean someone is fearless, stubborn or automatically correct. It means they keep some independence when the situation is pushing them to yield.

There are two explanations in this specification point.

• Social support is a situational explanation: another person in the situation makes resistance easier.
• Locus of control is a dispositional explanation: a person's general belief about control over life events makes resistance more or less likely.

An ally can reduce isolation: once someone else disagrees, the majority is no longer unanimous, and giving an independent answer may feel less socially costly. This is support during the pressure, rather than reassurance after the event.

For exam answers, keep the distinction sharp. Social support answers should focus on the immediate situation: an ally, dissenting peer or disobedient role model. Locus of control answers should focus on individual differences: internal and external beliefs about control.

Social support and conformity

An ally can make disagreement easier by breaking the majority’s unanimity.

In conformity situations, social support often works by breaking unanimity. A unanimous majority can create a strong sense that "everyone else thinks this, so I must be wrong" or "everyone else expects this, so I should fit in". When one person dissents, the pressure changes. The individual can see that disagreement is possible.

Asch's (1955) line-judgement research is the classic research example. In the reported procedure, 123 student participants from three higher-education institutions judged line lengths aloud after several confederates. There were 18 trials, including 12 critical trials where the majority deliberately gave the same wrong answer. Asch reported substantial conformity under a unanimous majority. When the participant had a truthful partner who also resisted the majority, majority pressure was reduced to about one-quarter of its previous strength. The conclusion is that the partner did not need to give a speech or persuade the participant: their mere disagreement showed that the majority was not united.

This can reduce both types of conformity pressure.

• Normative pressure: the person is less afraid of ridicule because they are not the only dissenter.
• Informational pressure: the person has independent confirmation that their perception may be right.

Allen and Levine's (1969) social support research adds a useful evaluation point. In a Crutchfield-style simulated group procedure with introductory psychology students, they compared a unanimous condition with conditions where a supporter dissented from the group. Social support reduced conformity, but support was stronger when the ally seemed competent at the task. An ally who appeared to have poor vision still helped, but less than a clearly valid ally. Their conclusion was that social support works partly because it gives independent confirmation of reality, not simply because another person is present. This means social support is not magic. It depends partly on whether the supporter seems able to give useful independent confirmation.

Social support and obedience

Social support can also explain resistance to obedience. Here the supporter may not share the participant's exact private belief, but they model disobedience. This matters because obedience often feels like a one-to-one confrontation with an authority figure. A disobedient peer changes the social field: the authority looks less absolute, and the participant sees a practical route for refusing.

Milgram's (1965) obedience variations are the classic example. In his baseline procedure, male adult participants were ordered to give increasingly intense electric shocks to a learner in a supposed memory study; 26 out of 40 were fully obedient. In the disobedient-peer variation, 40 fresh participants sat with two confederate "teachers" who eventually refused to continue. Full obedience fell to 4 out of 40. The conclusion is that disobedient peers created social support by showing that defiance was possible and that refusal did not lead to serious immediate consequences.

There are several mechanisms behind this.

• A disobedient peer provides a model of resistance.
• The authority figure's legitimacy is weakened because others are openly rejecting the order.
• The person can feel shared responsibility with other dissenters rather than feeling isolated.

The evaluation is balanced. Milgram's variation gives strong experimental support because the presence of disobedient peers was deliberately manipulated. However, the artificial task and historically specific sample limit generalisation to other kinds of authority. Deception and distress raise separate ethical concerns; these do not automatically invalidate the result. Four participants still fully obeyed despite peer refusal, so support increased the likelihood of resistance without guaranteeing it.

Locus of control

People differ in how much control they believe their own actions have over outcomes.

Rotter described locus of control as a continuum, not a simple personality type. People can be more internal or more external, and the same person may feel more in control in one situation than another.

The link to resistance is straightforward but should be worded carefully. People with a more internal locus of control are usually described as more likely to resist social influence because they believe their own actions matter. They may be more willing to take personal responsibility, trust their own judgement and act independently. People with a more external locus of control may be more likely to yield because they see powerful others or the situation as controlling what happens.

That does not mean internals always resist or externals always obey. A highly internal person may still conform if the group provides strong evidence, and a more external person may resist if they have strong social support. The best AQA answer treats locus of control as one factor interacting with the situation.

Evaluating locus of control

The main strength of locus of control is that it gives a plausible dispositional explanation for why people in the same situation behave differently. If two students face the same majority pressure, one may conform while the other resists. Locus of control helps explain that variation.

There is research support. Spector (1983) used Rotter's locus of control scale with 157 undergraduate students, alongside a measure of normative and informational predispositions. He found that locus of control was related to normative social influence tendencies, but not informational tendencies. This fits the theory: externals may be more vulnerable when the key pressure is social approval, but not necessarily when the issue is genuine uncertainty about what is correct.

Avtgis (1998) also reviewed studies on locus of control, persuasion, social influence and conformity. This meta-analysis found an average correlation of .37 between locus of control scores and persuasion, social influence and conformity measures, with externals generally more susceptible. This supports the broad idea that internality is linked to resistance, while still showing a relationship rather than a simple cause.

What the association allows us to conclude

A correlation describes a relationship between measured variables. Spector measured control beliefs and influence tendencies; he did not randomly assign people to become internal or external. The association therefore does not show that changing control beliefs causes resistance. A third variable, such as prior experiences of control, might contribute to both beliefs and behaviour.

A score showing more externality is not a count of obedient acts. A questionnaire about tendencies and behaviour during real pressure are different measures. Any claim that a result predicts real refusal needs evidence using actual behaviour as well.

The limitations matter just as much.

• Much of the evidence is correlational. It shows an association between locus of control and social influence, but it does not prove that locus of control causes resistance.
• Locus of control is broad. Specific features of the situation, such as task difficulty, group size, unanimity, proximity and authority, can be more powerful than personality.
• The explanation can become culturally biased if "internal" is treated as automatically better. In more collectivist contexts, attending to others may reflect social responsibility rather than weak independence.
• Historical evidence on locus of control shows that beliefs about control can change across cohorts and social contexts, so it should not be treated as a fixed trait outside society.

A reasonable synthesis is interactionist: both control beliefs and situational support may contribute. The cited studies do not by themselves establish the exact combined effect of these two factors.

Situations and control beliefs

A person's control beliefs and the support available in the situation offer different, potentially interacting explanations for resistance.

Suppose Aisha believes that her own choices matter, but everyone at a meeting supports a misleading claim. Her internal locus of control may encourage responsibility for her answer, while the unanimous group still puts pressure on her. When another colleague challenges the claim, social support reduces isolation. The belief and the ally do different jobs: neither is simply “confidence”.

Now suppose Ben usually feels that powerful others control events. He nevertheless sees two peers refuse an unreasonable order and joins them. This is consistent with strong situational support helping someone with a more external outlook. It would be wrong to infer that he must suddenly have developed an internal locus of control just because he resisted once.

These examples illustrate plausible interactions; they are not experimental proof of a precise combination. To test the claim, a researcher could measure control beliefs before the task, then randomly allocate people to a unanimous group or a group containing a dissenting ally. Compare the proportion giving an independent answer in each support condition, and separately compare people with different control scores. Random allocation strengthens a causal claim about the support manipulation. Control beliefs remain measured rather than randomly assigned, so an internal–external difference could still reflect another characteristic. Checking whether the support effect differs across control scores would investigate an interaction instead of merely assuming one.

Social support must help during the pressure, rather than merely being comforting friendship afterwards. Resistance also differs from minority influence: an ally can help someone maintain a private judgement without persuading the rest of the group to accept it. A person can resist a harmful order while still being willing to accept sound information from a group.

Quick recap

Social support can break unanimity or model refusal, reducing the isolation of resistance. Locus of control concerns beliefs about personal versus external control, rather than confidence alone. More internal beliefs may support independence, but evidence is often correlational and situational pressure still matters. One act of resistance does not diagnose a person’s locus of control.