Social influence is the process by which people adjust their behavior as a result of social interactions with other people. It refers to the exercise of power carried out by a person or group that influences the behavior of others.
Social influence shows how part A (a person, a group, a culture) makes part B (a person or a group of people) behave in ways in which they wouldn’t behave if A wasn’t there.
Responses to social influence
Harvard psychologist Herbert Kelman (1958) identified three basic processes of social influence. These three responses to social influence produce there different kinds of behavior change: compliance, identification, and internalization.
Compliance: The individual accepts (or appears to agree with) certain social influences. This public compliance does not entail a change in private opinions. Compliance is more likely if the source of influence has the power to punish or reward.
Identification: The individual is influenced by a person or a group of people that are liked and respected. They privately accept the new norms but keep doing so for as long as there is admiration and there is a desire to establish some sort of relationship. Identification is more likely if the source of influence has the power of attractiveness.
Internalization: There is consistency between a new opinion and the general value system of the individual. Internalization is more likely if the source of influence has the power of credibility.
Social Power
Social power is the capacity (or potential) to influence and assert control over others that can be used or not.
While social influence is the ability to change the behavior of others, social power is the ability to bring about that change.
Types of Social Power
Coercive power. Application of negative influences. Capability to threaten and punish others to drive change.
Reward power. Capability to use positive reinforcement to drive change (benefits, money, gifts, praise, etc.).
Legitimate power. Also known as “positional power”, is the power that an individual has because of their role or position. It is formal authority and, generally, restricted to a specific context.
Expert power. A type of power that comes from having a high level of knowledge in a field.
Referent power. A type of power deriving from an individual's potential to attract others and build loyalty. Referent power is based on the charisma and interpersonal skills of the person, who we admire and like.
Informational power. Ability to influence others based on the knowledge of facts relevant to the situation. For example, the witnesses of a crime have the power to influence a jury thanks to the information they know.
Read about leadership: Leadership: Are Leaders Born or Made?
Obedience
To obey is to follow orders. But why do we obey?
Milgram’s experiments on obedience to authority consisted of a series of psychological experiments conducted at Yale University in the 1960s. They measured the subjects’ willingness to obey an authority figure that asked them to do certain tasks that conflicted with their social consciousness.
Participants were made to believe that they were helping with an experiment in which they had to administer electric shocks to an “apprentice”. These fake electrical shocks increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real. The striking results showed that a large percentage of subjects blindly obeyed the instructions, even if they didn’t like the idea.
These experiments were conducted shortly after the war criminal and German Nazi Adolf Eichmann’s trials in Jerusalem. They helped understand how and why German soldiers would obey during Nazism.
Why did they obey?
One of the reasons why the participants obeyed in these experiments is that they were in an unfamiliar situation. They had little experience with electric shocks, and the researcher seemed to be in control of the situation and didn’t seem worried. On top of that, participants didn’t feel responsible for their actions, since the researcher assumed the responsibility.
Are experiments on obedience ethical?
Experiments on obedience are sometimes questionable from an ethical standpoint. Participants go under psychological stress and grief, they are “forced” to behave in unpleasant ways, and they may learn things about themselves that they’d rather not know.
These are some of the reasons why Milgrim’s experiments have been widely criticized.
Read about conformity: Are your Opinions Influenced by Those of a Group?
Social Impact Theory
Social impact theory, developed by Latané in the 1980s, consists of four basic rules that consider how individuals can be "sources or targets of social influence". This theory helps us understand and interlink some factors involved in obedience, conformity, and manifestations of other social influence.
The likelihood that someone will respond to social influence is thought to increase with the strength of the source, the immediacy of the event, and the number of sources exerting the impact.
Strength refers to how important the influencing individual or group of people is to the person.
Immediacy. Someone is more likely to influence another if they are close to each other. It can be physical, temporal, or social immediacy. There are other relevant proximity factors, like being of the same gender, religion, or sexual orientation.
Number of sources. A person is more likely to be influenced the more people try to influence them. However, once past 5 or 6 people, the difference in impact increases but at a decreasing rate, meaning it is not as strong.
Latené’s theory doesn’t explain any mechanisms or processes. Instead, it suggests that any theory that tries to explain these topics should consider these factors.
Nonconformity
We’ve so far looked at numerous factors that make people submit to social influence. Those who resist conforming with the rest of society run risks. However, many important people in history have been nonconformists, “free thinkers”. Why do those people not conform?
What motivates nonconformity?
One of the answers to the question “What motivated nonconformity?” is explained by the psychological reactance theory. Brehm (1966) hypothesized that those individuals who have their freedoms threatened or eliminated will feel the motivation to get them back. This unpleasant feeling that motivates us to restore our freedom is called reactance.
An individual may also not conform because of a desire to be unique, show originality, stand out, and draw other people’s attention, etc.
Knowledge Check
1. If the response to social influence you seek is compliance, which persuasion tools should you focus on?
a. Punishment or reward
b. Likability and charisma
c. Credibility
d. All options lead to compliance
2. If the response to social influence you seek is internalization, which persuasion tools should you focus on?
a. Punishment or reward
b. Likability and charisma
c. Credibility
d. All options lead to compliance
3 - If the response to social influence you seek is identification, which persuasion tools should you focus on?
a. Punishment or reward
b. Likability and charisma
c. Credibility
d. All options lead to compliance
4. The type of power that comes from having a high level of knowledge in a field is called…
a. Informational power
b. Legitimate power
c. Expert power
d. Referent power
5. Who conducted famous experiments on obedience?
a. Milgram
b. Zimbardo
c. Asch
d. Lewin
6. Latané’s Social Impact Theory is a model that sees influence as a result of social forces acting on the individual. Those forces are:
a. Strength, immediacy, and the number of sources.
b. Group size, personality, and unanimity.
c. Strength, group size, and personality.
d. Compliance, identification, and internalization.
Answer Key
1-a / 2-c / 3-b / 4-c / 5-a / 6-a /