Norman Redlich, who became the dean of New York University's Law School, when commenting on the ‘spin’ surrounding political speeches, said that to succeed in the television age you should 'never discuss the actual thing for which you were called to task. Never raise the question of whether it was right to take money from people who have a stake in the way you vote. Create your own ethical standards and point out how rigidly you adhere to them. And if the people are really as dumb as you think, you may be President of the United States.'
Influence consultants are increasingly sought by political campaign managers to provide a range of services, from psychological analyses of the electorate to the creation of speeches, advertisements, and strategies. One of the main methods used is known as ‘framing’. Rhoads (1997) describes a frame as ‘a psychological device that offers a perspective and manipulates salience in order to influence subsequent judgment’. Defence lawyers use this tactic to get ‘not so innocent’ clients aquitted. When this strategy succeeds, the ‘targets’ (be it the electorate in a presidential election or the jury in a murder trial) have become ‘victims’ of social influence.
One of the first studies of social influence was performed in 1898 by Triplett. He showed that children who had been asked to turn a fishing reel as fast as possible would spin it faster if there were other children present. Dashiell (1930) thought the effect depended upon rivalry. The effect was termed ‘social facilitation’. However in 1979 Latane, Williams, and Harkins found an opposite effect also existed which they termed ‘social loafing’. They identified that when a number of people are performing an action, an individual will put less effort into it than if acting alone.
In today’s high tech society, never has the power of persuasion been so strong. There are people who make a living out of influencing us. From the moment we wake we are bombarded with numerous direct attempts to control our behaviour and thoughts through adverting, the media and personal interaction. From the breakfast serial we eat, to the car we drive to work in. From the clothes we wear, to the religion we follow. From the time we arrive at work, to the time we leave. Virtually every move we make has been influenced in some way because our desire to conform makes us volunerable to social influence. Conformity is a change in thoughts, feelings or behaviour to bring them in line with the social norm. Social norm is the widely accepted ideas or rules about how people should behave or what they should believe.
Levin and Gaeth (1988) studied how consumers were affected by the framing of attribute information before and after consuming the product. Participants were required to rate the qualitative attributes of ground beef that had been described as either 75% lean or 25% fat. Their evaluations were more favourable toward the beef labelled according to percentage of ‘lean’.
In 1984 Kahnemann and Tversky argued that the way in which something is framed and the background context into which it is placed will influence a decision.
Communications and marketing companies have studied the phenomenon and have successfully integrated it into many advertising campaigns.
According to Pratkanis and Aronson (1991), modern day persuaders achieve their goals by appealing to the masses ‘through the manipulation of symbols and of our most basic human emotions.’ Society is a huge group of people who are continually manipulating each other to further their own ends by influencing, persuading, cajoling, demanding, and exhorting.
Cialdini (1984) proposed six major tactics or strategies for gaining compliance:
Reciprocation – repaying in kind what another person has provided for us. Consistency/Commitment – once we have made a choice it is normal to strive to be consistent.
Social Proof – the fact that others behave in a particular way confirms that way is appropriate.
Authority - can provide a short cut to decision making. By accepting someone as an authority we accept the behaviour that they advocate.
Liking – we are more likely to comply with another person when we like them and/or perceive that they like us. It is easier to say ‘no’ to someone who is a stranger or whom we do not like.
Scarcity - if an item is available in only limited quantities or not at all, we want it.
One of the first studies of conformity was conducted by Sherif in 1935. He showed that individual participants when asked to judge how much the light moved in a perceptual illusion would produce many varying answers. Yet when they were within a group a ‘group norm’ answer was produced. Later, Asch (1951) found participants would agree with answers put forward by stooges (comparing the length of drawn lines) that they knew to be untrue in order to avoid conflict and to maintain group harmony.
Moscovici (1976) believed Asch’s findings were inadequate as techniques for examining social influence. Asch’s experiment had shown conformity with the ‘majority’. Moscovici proposed conformity with the ‘minority’. He showed how only two stooges could influence the rest of the group by being consistent with their ‘untrue’ answers.
Obedience is perhaps the most extreme expectation of social influence. Milgram (1965) found that only a minority of participants in the role of ‘teacher’ refused to provide electric shocks (up to 450 volts) to a ‘learner’ in his obedience experiment. Before he undertook the experiment Milgram polled a group of psychiatrists. Only 1% actually believed that the majority of participants would obey the experimenter and administer electric shocks. Amazingly they were proved wrong. Virtually no participants stopped short of giving 300 volts and 65% actually administered the full 450volts. Although the ‘teachers’ were clearly disturbed by what they were doing, hardly any of them refused to obey. This nastier side of social influence can be seen throughout history. An example of which was the Vietnam War when American soldiers routinely and unquestioningly, murdered unarmed men, women and children because they were ‘under orders’ to do so.
It seems then that we are all ‘victims’ of social influence from the moment we wake to the moment we sleep. Influencing others is part of the experience of being human. Is George Orwell’s visionary novel ‘1984’ becoming a reality? Is there any part of our lives that is not controlled to some extent? Are we all trapped by our own personal ‘Room 101’ i.e the fear (real or imagined) of what will happen to us if we do not conform?
On a more positive note, social influence makes society work smoothly. Successful persuasion makes physical force unnecessary and therefore benefits society as a whole. As society benefits from persuasion, those who know how to persuade, in turn benefit from society.
We are all ‘victims’ of social influence in virtually everything we do or believe in and we are also capable of inflencing others. Agent or target? Vulture or victim? Either way influence is ubiquitous in everyday life.
References.
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Cialdini, R. B. 1993 William Morrow and Company,
Cialdini, R. B., Eisenberg, N., Green, B. L., Rhoads, K. v. L., and Bator, R. (1997). Undermining the undermining effect of reward on sustained interest. In press, Journal of Applied Social Psychology
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