Social Influence
How People Get Us to Do things
S
R
S’
R’
Depiction of social influence. Social influence occurs when one person does something, S, which leads to a
behavioral response, R, in another person. When the stimulus is not present, S’, the behavior does not occur, R’.
Social Influence
• Physical/symbolic
• Intended/unintended
A BEHAVIORAL MODEL IS…
Represented in Mind of the Source
Communicated by the Source
Represented in Mind of the Recipient
Intended by the Recipient
Executed by the Recipient
Progression of a behavioral model in social influence. The unit of analysis in social influence is the behavioral
model. The model in the social influence process begins as a conceptualization in the mind of an influence source,
who communicates it to an intended recipient. If done successfully, the behavioral model forms a representation in the
recipient’s mind. Not only must the recipient comprehend the model, she or he must adopt the plan for personal use—
hence the recipient intends to carry out the depicted behavior. From there, the recipient will produce the conduct given
sufficient skill and opportunity.
Landscape of Influence
Family: member
Friends: friend
Peers: peer
Media: consumer
Sport’s team: player
Politics: voter, party member
Hobbies: hobbyist
Companies: consumer,
workers
Entertainment: consumer
Government: citizen
Education: student
Health and
medicine: Patient
Legal system:
witness, accused,
victim, convict
Social Influence Course
• Emphasis on
– Concrete techniques
– Interaction with mental processes
Context
Interaction
Perception
of object
Opportunity
Attitude
Compliance
test
Behavior
Factors in social influence. Boxes made up of solid lines represent situational factors in influence. These can be
manipulated by the influence source in his or her attempt to alter the conduct of the influence recipient. All of the
external factors must be present before influence can occur. Boxes composed in dotted lines represent cognitions that
must be changed to make influence possible.
Perception of Object
• Clarity
– Hoping for A but asking for B
• Reactance
– Unfair restriction perceived, person acts to
restore freedom
• Influence-resistance trade-off
• Propaganda
• Education
Attitudes
• Attitude
– Evaluative judgment stored in memory (Olson
& Zanna, 1993)
– Evaluation—favorable/unfavorable, good/bad,
positive/negative
– Memory representation (Pratkanis &
Greenwald, 1989—sociocognitive model)
• Object label
• Evaluation
• Knowledge structure supporting evaluation
Attitudes
• Attitude correlates
– Associative network
– Cognition
– Affect
– Behavioral intention
– Spreading activation
Attitudes
• Attitude concept is essential to model
because the concept is
– Easily linked to technique elements
– The motivational construct of social
psychology
• Principal Social Influence Strategy
– Create opportunity for a recipient to act in
attitude-consistent ways
Attitudes
• Functions of attitudes (Katz)
– Value-expressive function: performing the
behavior is the appropriate thing to do
– Knowledge function: the behavior serves to fill
in a vacuum regarding how one should act
– Social adjustment function: provides a way to
be accepted by a desirable group
– Utilitarian/instrumental function: allows for a
good personal gain/loss ratio
– Ego-defensive function: helps preserve a
desirable self-conception
Techniques
• See course outline
The “Cold Controller”
• Two portions of course
– Basic research
– Application
• Propaganda (vs. education)
– Self-interest
• Two faces
– Smiling
– Cold
– What techniques are used?
– How can we recognize and defend against them?