Social influence

What can be said about human cooperation?

(Warneken & Tomasello, 2006) showed that children are capable of helping others achieve their goals even if they don’t receive an immediate benefit, suggesting that human cooperation may be innate 

What is the ecological systems theory?

Ecological systems theory = human development is influenced by a set of environments ranging from those closest to us, such as our family and friends, to broader societal factors, like culture and the government 

What can be said about conformity?

Conformity is socially rewarding: 

• (Campbell-Meiklejohn, 2010) used fMRI to show that when participants agreed with music experts on the value of a piece of music, their ventral striatum (an area associated with reward) was activated 

• (Klucharev, 2009) also used fMRI to show that when participants’ judgements on facial attractiveness didn’t match a group norm, a prediction error occurred in the ventral striatum – the size of this prediction error would determine how likely they were to change their behaviour 

(Smith & Bond, 1996) showed that collectivistic cultures are more likely to conform to social norms compared to individualistic cultures 

(Whiten, 2005) showed that chimpanzees would follow the food retrieving technique of their local experts (demonstrating that social influence may be an innate process) 

What is the Return Potential Model (RPM)?

Represents social norms as functions of their perceived approval and disapproval within a group 

Norm crystallisation (narrowness of the curve), norm intensity (total area under the curve), normative power (demonstrates pressure to conform) 

Assumes that norms are static and are uniform across groups 

(Glynn & Huge, 2007) analysed telephone survey data and found that people’s opinions can influence how often they talk about certain topics 

What is informational and normative social influence?

Informational social influence = when individuals conform to others’ behaviours and opinions because they believe that others have the correct information (driven by the desire to be correct) 
^We can target these with descriptive norms (which describe what people are actually doing) 

Normative social influence = when individuals conform to others’ behaviours and opinions because they fear social disapproval (driven by the desire to be socially accepted) 
^We can target these with prescriptive norms (which describe what we should be doing) 

What is the focus theory of normative conduct?

Focus theory of normative conduct = individuals' behaviours are influenced by social norms primarily when they are made salient within the environment 

(Cialdini, 1990) explored how injunctive norms could promote socially desirable behaviour, specifically anti-littering behaviours 
In the experiment, participants were more likely to conform when the norm was made salient 
A heavily littered environment reinforced the descriptive norm (that most people littered), which led to more littering behaviour 
Benefits = offers insights for public policy and behavioural interventions 
Limitations = the study measured immediate changes rather than long-term changes in attitudes, it looks at a relatively simple behaviour (littering) rather than more complex moral ideas (e.g. racism) 
(Bergquist, 2021) replicated this study 
They also found evidence that participants were less likely to litter in clean environments, but they also found that the presence of a single piece of litter increased the likelihood of participants littering (shows that some people litter, which weakens the effect of the social norm) 

What is the effect of others on our behaviour?

(Milgram, 1969) showed that when crowd size increased, participants were more likely to also adopt the behaviour of looking up at the sky 
Limitations = looks at very simple behaviours (looking up at the sky), this might not translate to more complex behaviours and attitudes 

(Cai, 2009) found that social norms are often used as decision-heuristics 
When a restaurant provided customers with the rankings of the five most popular dishes, demand for these dishes greatly increased 
They found no saliency effect (simply making the dishes more prominent did not affect behaviour) 
Limitation = tested the social norm within a restaurant setting (specific context) 

What is the bias-variance dilemma?

Bias-variance dilemma = individuals can either make overly simplistic decisions (high bias) or be overly sensitive to small details (high variance) 

What is wisdom of the crowd?

Wisdom of the crowd = the collective decision-making of a large group of people is often more reliable than the decision of an individual expert, as long as the group is decentralised, diverse, and independent in its thinking 
^Concordet’s jury theorem provides evidence of this – if every member of a jury has a more than even chance of making the correct decision, then as the size of the jury increases, the probability of making the correct decision approaches certainty 

(Beck, 2017) showed that wisdom of the crowd only applied in decentralised networks, where there are no individuals dominating 

What can we say about the social norms regarding alcohol use?

(Prentice & Miller, 1993) showed evidence of pluralistic ignorance, where students overestimated how uncomfortable they were with campus alcohol practices compared to other students 
Limitations = focused on college students (results may not be generalisable), participants might have underreported their true drinking behaviours (social desirability bias) 

(Haines & Spear, 1996) demonstrated that changing perceptions of drinking norms can reduce binge drinking behaviour (social norms can effectively influence human behaviour) 
Limitations = looked at short term changes following the intervention (not whether these changes were sustainable) 

What is the Gateway belief model?

Gateway belief model = individuals’ beliefs about social norms and the behaviours of others will serve as a gateway for influencing their own behaviour 

(Van der Linden, 2017) found that telling people that most scientists agree that humans are the cause of climate change can influence public attitudes and protect them against misinformation (through inoculation) 

What is social judgement theory?

Social judgement theory = people evaluate new information based on their pre-existing beliefs and will categorise it as either acceptable, objectionable, or neutral (the smaller the discrepancy between new and pre-existing information, the more likely it is to be ranked as acceptable) 

What is the spread-activation model?

Spread-activation model = when a concept is activated, it spreads to related concepts within a network, increasing the chances that these related concepts are also recalled 

(Keizer, 2018) showed that when individuals viewed visible signs of graffiti or observed other people fighting, they were more likely to also engage in these activities (the presence of minor violations can lead to further misconduct) 

(Nook, 2016) showed that when individuals observed generous donations to charity, they became more likely to also donate   

What are social tipping points?

Social tipping points = the point where a virtuous cycle turns into a vicious cycle (or vice versa), and they demonstrate how norms can change quickly 

How can we change social norms?

(Tankard, 2017) found that when people saw the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling as likely, they were more likely to think that support for gay marriage was a common social norm 
Big institutional changes can influence individuals’ perceptions of social norms, even if they don’t influence their personal beliefs 
Benefits = longitudinal study (more reliable than solely looking at short-term changes) 
Limitations = no evidence for changes in personal beliefs which limits the ability to conclude that changing social norms can lead to changes in behaviour 

(Sparkman, 2017) suggested that just showing people how behaviour is changing over time can encourage people to conform to these social norms 

What tools can we use to change social norms?

Social referents = influential individuals or groups whose behaviours and attitudes shape others’ perceptions of what it typical or acceptable in a social context 

(Paluck, 2016) showed that targeting social referents can shift collective norms and behaviours, specifically in the context of anti-conflict interventions at school 
Limitations = this study is based on specific school contexts within the US (may have limited generalisability) 

Social media 

Algorithms and echo chambers (environments where individuals are exposed only to information and opinions that reinforce their pre-existing beliefs) 

(Zollo, 2017) identified scientific and spiritual communities on social media and showed that fact checks were mainly shared within these specific communities separately, resulting in an uneven distribution of information across different kinds of communities