Conforming, counter-conforming and independent behavior as a function of locus of control expectancies
Date
1971
Authors
Oliver, Peter Roger
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Abstract
Previous research has indicated that an individual's behavior in a social influence situation is in part determined by the person's tendency to perceive the source of reinforcement to be internalized or externalized. A review of the literature pertaining to such locus-of-control expectancies and reference to the cognitive development theory of Harvey , Hunt and Schroder (1961) suggest that responses to social influence are affected by an individual's locus-of-control expectancies. Thus, persons who generally expect personal control of reinforcements (internals) were hypothesized to be counter conforming, being resistive to, and defending against, attempts at social influence regardless of how competent the influencer is. Persons who generally expect reinforcements to be controlled by forces outside of themselves (externals) were hypothesized to be conforming, being susceptible to social influence regardless of the competence of the influencer. Persons without strong expectancies concerning locus of control (moderates) were hypothesized to be independent, being influenced when the influencer was competent but not when the influencer was not competent.
In the present study, subjects were grouped according to their scores on the I-E scale, developed by Rotter (1966) to measure individual differences in locus-of-control expectancies. Twenty-two internals, moderates and externals were selected according to their scores on the I-E scale and assigned to either the subject-accurate or partner-accurate condition.
The experimental task was of a perceptual nature, subjects having to judge the distance between pairs of lights, Each subject made an initial set of judgments, after which he received feedback concerning the judgments of a partner performing on the same task. In one experimental condition, subjects were given feedback indicating that they were more accurate in their judgments than the partner (subject-accurate),while in the other experimental condition, feedback was given indicating that the partner was more accurate (partner-accurate). Each subject then had the opportunity to examine his partner's judgments and make a second set of judgments on the same pairs of lights, A measure was then taken of how much each subject t ended to change his judgments to agree with the partner (congruency) along with measures of the subject's ratings of the partner's competence and trustworthiness and the skill-determination of the task.
It was hypothesized that the subjects would be more influenced by the partner's judgments in the partner-accurate condition than in the subject-accurate condition and that the subjects would tend to rate the partner as being more competent and trustworthy in the former condition, Only the congruency scores and ratings of the partner given by the moderates were hypothesized to increase from the subject accurate to the partner-accurate condition, these measures for the internals and externals being hypothesized to remain low and high, respectively, across both accuracy conditions. Ratings of the task as being determined by chance were hypothesized to increase from the subject-accurate to the partner-accurate condition for the internals, the ratings given by the moderates and externals remaining low and high respectively.
The results showed that subjects tended to be more influenced when the partner was presented as being competent than when he was presented as not being competent. Ratings of the partner's competence and trustworthiness also increased. The hypothesized interactions between locus of control and perceived accuracy were not obtained, all subjects being more influenced in the partner-accurate condition than in the subject-accurate condition. Across both accuracy conditions, the internals tended to be more influenced by the partner's judgments than either the moderates or the externals. This finding was unexpected, and several post hoc explanations were offered to account for these differences.