Do you know what social influence is and how it affects us?

Social influence occurs when emotions, opinions, or behaviors are affected by another person. Although it may not seem very common, since most of the people we deal with are not going to try to change our attitudes, social influence occurs continually in our lives.

From the moment we enter a supermarket, sellers will offer us products at reduced prices. The mechanic is going to advise us to change tires when we only want to check the car’s oil. Friends are going to tell us what music is the best. Our partner is going to advise us on the wardrobe. So, In a large number of situations others will try to influence us almost without us realizing it.

First contributions to theories of social influence

Social influence has been a major topic in social psychology and It has been used to explain acts as horrific as those committed by the Nazis.; even the behaviors of the traitors who abandoned their side to fight with the opposite side.

To arrive at what we know today as social influence, a series of experiments were carried out whose results broke preconceived beliefs and they were difficult to accept. Among them are:

Cialdini’s experiments

One of the most famous researchers in this field is Robert Cialdini. Working as a car salesman, Cialdini discovered six factors of social influence that he called the “weapons of influence.” (Cialdini, 2001). These factors are the following:

Reciprocity principle: People have the need to return favors. Doing a favor imposes a debt and the other person has the need to solve it. If you invite someone to dinner, chances are that this person will end up returning your favor.Principle of commitment and coherence: be and appear consistent with statements or acts previously carried out. Imagine that you are going to buy a house and the seller tells you the price. You agree and agree to purchase it. A few days later the seller tells you that the price is slightly higher since he had looked at it wrong. Since you had already said yes and committed, to be consistent, you will most likely accept the new price.Social validation principle: feel included. What a large number of people do tends to be considered valid. If all your friends think that a certain brand of car is the most reliable, your opinion will probably end up being the same as theirs. As the saying goes: “a lot of evil is a consolation for fools.”Principle of authority: Explanations given by someone who is considered important or who come from an institution seem more credible. Actor Hugh Laurie has been hired to make drug advertisements since, despite not being a doctor, playing one (House series) has given him a similar advertising projection.Spell principle: When there is physical attraction it is easier to convince someone of something. Likeability and similarities are going to be key factors when persuading people. In this regard, studies have shown that more attractive women are less likely to be arrested and convicted than less attractive women.Scarcity principle: The perception of scarcity generates demand. When a product is presented as limited in time or accessibility, it leads to a change in purchasing attitude. Many stores use techniques such as offering products or prices for a limited time or offering limited units.

Persuasion techniques: Your foot in the door

Within the category of commitment and coherence we find a famous technique called “foot in the door”. This technique consists of make a small request that the vast majority of people will accept, to later make a bigger one, which is the real request.

In in 1966 Freedman and Fraser They did a foot-in-the-door experiment. They asked several people to put up a big, ugly sign in their yard that read: “Drive Safely.” Only 17% agreed. Another group of people were first asked to sign a document in favor of road safety. This petition involved little commitment, so virtually everyone signed.

What happened? When, weeks later, they asked this second group to put up the sign in their garden, 55% of people accessed. In this way you can see how we can be manipulated without realizing it. That is, after having made a small commitment, it is easier for us to agree to do something that, under other conditions, we would surely not do.

The Asch experiment and social conformity

Another of the classic studies in the field of social influence, particularly on the topic of conformity, is that of Solomon Asch (1956). This researcher gathered groups of people in a room and showed them a drawing of a line. Next, he showed them three lines of different sizes, one of which was the same length as the previously shown line, and asked them to say which line was the same length as the first.

The interesting thing is that all the people in the room, except one, were part of the team of experimenters. So the participant, the only person who did not know that an experiment was taking place, watched as everyone else chose an incorrect option and discarded the true line of similar size. In the end, in a significant percentage of cases, the participant ended up choosing the wrong line, just like the rest of the people.

This experiment was carried out with different variants, changing the number of people and the position in which the participant gave their response. The more people and the more people opted for the incorrect option before that participant, the more likely they were to opt for the majority option. Furthermore, the fact that there was one person who disagreed with the majority made it more likely that the participant would choose the correct option and not the one incorrectly indicated by the majority.

The Milgram experiment and obedience to authority

Finally, another of the classic experiments in social psychology, this one on the topic of obedience, is that of Stanley Milgram (1974). This researcher asked one participant to ask questions to another participant who was in a booth. Each time they failed a question, the participant had to press a button that administered a shock and increased the voltage.

The participant who answered the questions and received the shocks was an actor who faked the shocks, which were not real. Most of the participants, despite the other participant’s cries of pain, They administered shocks so strong that they could lead a person to death.. Throughout the process, the researcher told the participant that he should continue.

Subsequently, various studies showed that when people are asked what maximum discharge they would be able to give, they ignore the authority of the researcher and tend to give low data. However, when they participate in the experiment, the researcher’s voice telling them to continue is enough for them to do so.

Forms of social influence

Currently, it is considered that social influence can occur in different ways:

Accordance (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2010): Conformity is the degree to which emotions, opinions, or feelings will change to fit with the opinions of the group. Social groups usually have norms and values ​​that indicate what to think and when, if we do not accept it, we will not enter the group. Therefore, to be members of the group we are going to change our opinions for theirs, we are going to conform to what they tell us.Socialization (Clausen, 1968): socialization is a process that consists of internalizing the norms and ideology of a society. There are a series of social agents that will transmit the socialization process to us, among which the family and the school stand out.Peer pressure (Haun and Tomasello, 2011): peer pressure or social pressure is the influence from a group of peers or equals, which has a high level of influence during adolescence.Obedience (Milgram, 1963): obedience consists of listening to an order and following it. Orders can consist of actions that are performed or omitted. In obedience there is a key figure, which is that of authority. This can be anything from a person, to a community or an idea. He is a figure that, above all, deserves obedience for different reasons.Leadership (Chin, 2015): leadership is the set of managerial skills to influence the way of being or acting of people or a work group. These skills are used so that the person or team works enthusiastically to achieve their goals and objectives. These capabilities include the ability to delegate, take the initiative, manage, convene, promote, incentivize, motivate and evaluate a project, among others.Persuasion (Cialdini, 22001): persuasion is a process aimed at changing the attitude or behavior of a person or a group towards some event, idea, object or person, through the use of words to transmit information, feelings, or reasoning, or a combination thereof. Basically it is influencing someone through words.

Cognitive dissonance

But, Why do all these methods of social influence work? Although there are various explanations, one of the theories that has gained the most strength over time is the theory of cognitive dissonance (Festiger, 1957).

Cognitive dissonance occurs when two thoughts conflict or when a behavior conflicts by not adapting to previous beliefs. (Ex: someone who thinks that killing is bad and ends up killing, someone who thinks that smoking is bad and ends up smoking).

In other words, cognitive dissonance is understood as the tension caused by the lack of internal harmony in the system of ideas, beliefs and emotions. This tension brings with it an unpleasant experience that will lead people to try to restore coherence.

Although the reduction of dissonance can occur in different ways, the result is usually a change in attitudes. For example, let’s imagine that a person who considers himself good and participates in Milgram’s experiment.

This person considers that it is a good person to obey authority and he wants to continue considering himself that way.. Therefore, he will obey the researcher and give stronger shocks every time the other participant fails in his answers. If he did not obey, dissonance would appear.

She is not going to consider the option of disobeying because she does not want to distance herself from the attributes that, for her, distinguish a good person.. It is true that he also considers that it is a good person not to torture others with shocks, but at first these shocks are mild. So, between the two…