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Summary social influence
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A complete summary of the course 'Social influence', given in the minor Psychology in Society, as well as in the regular bachelor psychology.
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Social influence summary readingsChapter 1, weapons of influence (week 1)
Fixed-action patterns, fundamental characteristic of these patterns is that the behaviors
comprising them occur in virtually the same fashion and in the same order every time
Trigger feature just a tiny aspect of the totality that is the approaching intruder (why
someone comes in action)
Research showed that the word because triggered an automatic compliance response even
when they were given no subsequent reason to comply.
Stereotype= expensive = good (when unsure about quality, often this stereotype used)
In fact, automatic, stereotyped behavior is prevalent in much human action, because in
many cases, it is the most efficient form of behaving, and in other cases it is simply
necessary.
In general, we must very often use our stereotypes, our rules of thumb, to classify things
according to a few key features and then to respond without thinking when one or another
of these trigger features is present.
Judgmental heuristics shortcuts operate in much the same fashion as expensive = good rule,
allowing for simplified thinking that works well most of the time but leaves us open to
occasional, costly mistakes.
Controlled responding tendency to react on the basis of a thorough analysis of all of the
information (often used when have both the desire and ability to analyze it carefully)
the tendency to respond mechanically to one piece of information in a situation is what we
have been calling automatic responding
safety net corresponding with the dangerous business of click, whir responding: resist the
seductive luxury of registering and reacting to just a single (trigger) feature of the available
information when an issue is important to us.
Mimics group copy the trigger features of other animals in an attempt to trick these animals
into mistakenly playing the right behavior tapes at the wrong times: they exploit this
altogether inappropriate action for their own benefit.
Our automatic tapes usually develop from psychological principles or stereotypes we have
learned to accept.
Contrast principle ‘the same thing can be made to seem very different depending on the
nature of the event that precedes it’. The nice little weapon of influence provided by the
,contrast principle does not go unexploited. The great advantage of this principle is not only
that is works but also that it is virtually undetectable.
Chapter 7 (week 1), instant influence, primitive consent for an automatic age
Very often when we make a decision about someone or something we don’t use all of the
relevant available information: instead, only a single highly representative piece of the total
At the same time, a complicating companion theme has been present: despite the
susceptibility of stupid decisions that accompanies a reliance on a single feature of the
available data, the pace of modern life demands that we frequently use this shortcut.
Humans still have capacity limitations too: and, for the sake of efficiency, we must
sometimes retreat from the time-consuming, sophisticated, fully informed brand of decision
making to a more automatic, primitive, single-feature type of responding.
When we don’t have inclination, time, energy, or cognitive resources to undertake a
complete analysis of the situation. Rushed, indifferent, distracted etc. we tend to focus less
on the information available to us. When making decisions under these circumstances, we
often revert to the rather primitive but necessary single-piece-of-good- evidence approach
With the sophisticated mental apparatus we have used to build world eminence as a species,
we have created an environment so complex, fast-paced, and information-laden that we
must increasingly deal with it in the fashion of the animals we long ago transcended.
Information does not translate directly into knowledge. It must first be processed, accessed
absorbed, comprehended, integrated, and retained.
Since technology can evolve much faster than we can, our natural capacity to process
information is likely to be increasingly inadequate to handle the abundance of change,
choice, and challenge that is characteristic of modern life.
More and more frequently, we will find ourselves in the position of lower animals unlike
lower animals, whose cognitive powers have always been relatively deficient, we have
created our own deficiency by constructing a radically more complex world. Now, when
making a decision, we will les frequently engage in a fully considered analysis of the total
situation = paralysis of analysis, we will revert increasingly to a focus on a single, usually
reliable feature of the situation.
The problem in the shortcuts come when something causes the normally trustworthy cues
to counsel us poorly, to lead us to erroneous actions and wrongheaded decisions.
What to do against the expected intensified attack on our system of shortcuts:
- Forceful counterassault: only those individuals who falsify, counterfeit or
misrepresent the evidence that naturally cues our shortcut responses
- We should be willing to use boycott, threat, confrontation, censure, tirade, nearly
anything, to retaliate
, Chapter 4, social proof: truths are us (week 2, 3)
What can it be about canned laughter that is so attractive to television executives?
- They know what the research says- even though in general public thinks it is
annoying- experiments have found that the use of canned laughter causes an
audience to laugh longer and more often when humorous material is presented and
to rate the material as funnier
- Most effective for poor jokes
Why does it work the way it does?
- shortcuts
To discover why canned laughter is so effective, first we need to understand the nature of
yet another potent weapon of influence: principle of social proof we determine what is
correct by finding out what other people think is correct. Applies especially to the way we
decide what constitutes to the correct behavior: we view a behavior as correct in a given
situation to the degree that we see others performing it.
Normally works, we will make fewer mistakes by acting in accord with social evidence than
by acting contrary to it. Feature of principle of social proof is simultaneously its major
strength as weakness provides convenient shortcut, but at the same time, makes one
who uses the shortcut vulnerable to the attacks of profiteers who lie in wait along its path
The principle of social proof works best when the proof is provided by the actions of many
other people (especially ones you compare yourself with)
Several features when illustrating the strength of social influence in an example:
- it offers a superb example of the much-underused method of participant
observation, in which a scientist studies a process of becoming immersed in its
natural occurrence
- it provides information of interest to such diverse groups as historians
- psychologists and theologians and most important shows how social evidence can be
used on us to assure us that what we prefer to be true will seem to be true
Why a cult and his beliefs work:
- the level of commitment to the cult’s belief system was very high, even under
enormous social, economic and legal pressure
- a curious form of inaction, try not really hard to convince others: distaste for
recruitment effort was evident in various ways besides the lack of personal
persuasion attempts: publicly avoided
When the flood did not happen, the cult felt the urge to call up all newspapers which they
firstly rejected so the nonbelievers would not view the group and its dogma as laughable.
Since the only acceptable form of truth had been undercut by physical proof, there was but
one way out of the corner of the group. It had to establish another type of proof for the
validity of its beliefs: social proof
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