Outline and briefly evaluate locus of control as an explanation of resistance to social influence.

Locus of control was a concept put forward by Rotter in 1966 that describes an element of our personality. It is the extent to which we feel in control and take responsible for the things around us that happen. A person’s locus of control can be either internal or external. Those with an internal locus of control take full responsibility for the outcome of their actions without relying on the opinions of others – they are autonomous. External locus of controls often blame others when things go wrong and believe in things such as luck or fate as they do not see themselves as in control of what happens around them. As such, people with an internal locus of control are much more likely to resist social influence since they are less influenced by others. This is explanation is supported by research conducted by Holland in 1967. He categorised his participants as having either an internal or external locus of control. The participants were then subjected to Milgram’s electric shock paradigm and it was found that 37% of the internals were disobedient compared to 23% of externals. This is supportive of the view that those with an internal locus of control find it easier to resist social influence. However, the explanation is limited by the findings of Avtgis in 1998. He used a meta-analysis to look at a range of studies that had looked for a link between locus of control and conformity rates. It was found that there was a positive correlation of 0.37 between those with an external locus of control and rates of conformity. Although this does in part support the explanation, it should be recognised that the correlation is not particularly strong.