SOCIAL INFLUENCE AND PERSUASION
(This section is based on Lisa Rashotte’s article on Social influence, in Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Sociology.)
If someone changes his ideas, feelings, attitudes, or behaviours due to interaction with another person or group, he has been socially influenced. Social influence can be distinguished from conformity,power,and authority.Conformityconnotesthat an individual voicesthe opinionsof others or follows in their footsteps because they expect him to do so and not out of genuine conviction. Power signifies that one has the means to force or coerce others to act in a given manner against their wishes. Authority is power, but those subject to it, regard it as legitimate and not coercive. Unlike conformity, power and authority, social influence genuinely changes the feelings and behaviours of people as a result of their interaction with others. This change comes about because people feel a sense of solidarity with others (consider them a referent social group) or because they think such others as more knowledgeable (as experts) or virtuous.
According to French and Raven, social influence operates via five sources of social power. The following table shows the five sources of social power and the manner in which they bring about change.
Name of social power | Manner in which it brings about change |
Reward power | Benefiting individuals changing their views |
Coercive power | Forcing individuals to change their views |
Legitimate power | Making people feel that they are following just and fair rules/orders |
Expert power | Promoting regard for scholarship, professional knowledge and skills |
Referent power | Creating a sense of solidarity with his peer social group and desire for changing opinion in line with a majority of that group |
As against common usage, French and Raven considered a change in opinion or attitude (conformity) as an instance of social influence although it may not be a true change of heart. The settings of French and Raven’s original research were situations in which a supervisor influences a worker in a work situation. Later studies covered many other social interactions such as families, classrooms, doctors and their patients, salespeople and customers and political figures.
Laterresearch distinguishedchangescaused by truesocialinfluence fromthosedue to forcedpublic acceptance (conformity) or due to conferring rewards or exercising coercive power. An individual’s outward public compliance arising from conformity, reward power, and coercive power are, though still studied, differentiated from social influence.
Social influence is presently studied with reference to five main areas: (1) research on persuasion;
(2) dynamic social impact theory; (3) structural approach to social influence; (4) minority influence in group settings; and (5) social influence in expectation states theory. Although we have discussed a few aspects of these topics earlier, we will recall them briefly in the context of social influence,
Persuasionmeanschangein attitudesor beliefsbasedon informationreceivedfromothers;itsstudy,as we sawearlier,mainlyrevolves aroundwritten or spoken messagessent fromsource to recipient.The two main theories of persuasion are the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and heuristic-systemic model (HSM). They discuss how the recipients of messages process them. Messages are processed in two ways according to these two theories, and hence they are called dual-process models. The two processing routes are central and peripheral.
In the central route to persuasion, recipients process the message attentively and diligently, thoughtfully considering its arguments, ideas and content. In central processing mode, the recipient acts as an active partner in the process of persuasion. Central processing can only occur when the receiver has both the motivation and the ability to think about the message and its topic.
In the heuristic processing route, recipients do not pay much attention to the information content or logic of the message. Then what do they do? They are likely to agree with messages delivered by experts, or messages endorsed by celebrities. These factors influence them more than the content and logic of the message.
As compared to peripheral or heuristic processing, central route processing leads to more permanent attitude changes; such changes lead to corresponding changes in behaviour; and the changes are also more resistant to counter persuasion.
Both HSM and ELM were propounded in the early 1980’s and share many of the concepts and ideas. It is difficult to clearly distinguish between the two theories also since both are based on dual information processing models. However, the heuristic-systemic theory sets greater store on peripheral processing route. This theory holds that individuals tend to minimize their use of cognitive resources, and this tendency affects how they receive and process messages. In plain language, people tend to be lazy-minded. They tend to receive messages casually paying little attention. Of course, whether this is actually so depends on individuals and the circumstances in which they operate. HSM tries to examine what motivates people in any social environment to regard some messages as being more valid than others.
Normally, the degree and type of thinking a person devotes to a message will affect its power of persuasion. As we saw earlier, other parameters important for messaging models include source, message, and recipient, affect (emotion), channel, and context. The personal relevance of the message to the recipient is critical.
Social impact refers to changes an individual experiences (physiological, cognitive, emotional, or behavioural) due to the presence or action of others, who are real, imagined, or implied. According to social impact theory, three factors determine the impact of any information source: number of
others in the source; their nearness; and their strength or, salience or power. Hindrances to the influence of any of the three factors will reduce impact.
Social impact theory helps in describing and predicting the diffusion of beliefs in society. This theory regards social structure as the result of individuals influencing each other in a dynamic and iterative way. The likelihood of being influenced by someone nearby, rather than far away, (the nearness factor mentioned above) produces localized cultures of belief within communication networks. In this way, attitudes and beliefs, which are to begin with scattered, can become clustered or correlated. The less popular beliefs become consolidated into minority subcultures. Dynamic socialimpact theorylooks upon society as a self-organizing systeminwhichindividualsinteract and influence beliefs of one another.
Structural Approach to Social Influence
The structural approach also studies how people influence one another within a larger social network. In this network, attitudes and opinions of individuals mirror the attitudes and opinions of their ‘referent others’ with whom they have a sense of belonging. An individual’s socialization (i.e. getting attuned to social norms and mores) and identity (i.e. sense of belonging or feeling of solidarity) depends on interpersonal influence. Social influence is seen as the process by which a group of actors will assess and accept the opinions of leading members of their referent group while staying within the social structural framework. The structure creates the initial set of ideas of group members and strength of interpersonal influences within the group. In a nut shell, it states that individuals combine their originally held beliefs with influential opinions of larger social structures. They reach a set of new opinions blending their initial opinions and the network norms.
Minority influence operates when a minority subgroup attempts to change the majority. For example, teachers often influence their students’ beliefs, and political and religious leaders frequently influence the behaviour of their followers. Earlier, the process of social influence was seen as the majority weighing down on the minority. But now many writers believe that every member of a group can influence others in some measure. This appears to be particularly true when the minority group is consistent in what it presents to the majority. In addition, it is believed that the presence of minority groups within a larger group often leads to more creative thinking and better overall solutions on group tasks.
Expectation states theory of social influence deals with the relative influence of individuals within groups, and is based on the study of Bales (1950). Bales observed that even when group members had equal status at the beginning of the group session, some members would become more influential than others later. Based on the behaviour of group members, a hierarchy would emerge. If group members are initially unequal in status, this inequality would reflect that of the larger society (to which group members belong) based on age or sex or race.
Berger and others proposed the Expectation states theory in 1980 to explain Bales’s finding that groups with members of equal status would develop inequalities in influence. According to this
theory, group members have expectations about how all group members, including themselves, are likely to perform, and these expectations guide group interactions. In fact, expectations both guide and are maintained by the interaction. Those group members for whom the highest expectations are held will be the most influential in the group’s interactions.
Expectation states approaches to social influence have been studied in settings such as classrooms, jury rooms, and the workplace. Status characteristics that produce influence have been identified and extensively studied, including sex, race, and physical attractiveness.
Summary
¤ An attitude is a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour.
¤ Carl Jung, one of the founders of psychoanalysis, defines attitude as a “readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way”. According to Jung, attitudes occur in pairs out of which one is conscious and the other unconscious.
¤ Attitude has three components: cognitive, affective and conative or behavioural.
¤ Cognitive part consists of a person’s thoughts and beliefs about the object.
¤ The emotional (or affective) part consists of the feelings which the object, person, issueor event evoke.
¤ The behavioural part consists of the manner in which the attitude influences a person’s behaviour.
¤ Attitudes perform various functions for the psychological and mental benefit of the individual.
¤ Psychologists ask, ‘what purposes in a psychological sense are served by the attitudes which an individual holds?’
¤ According to Daniel Katz, a famous psychologist, attitudes can serve instrumental, adjustive or utilitarian, ego-defensive, value-expressive, or knowledge functions.
¤ Knowledge enables us to understand the world, and respond suitably to the things and happenings around us.
¤ Ego-Defensive attitudes, as the name shows, refer to psychological responses involving use of defence mechanisms.
¤ Ego-defence mechanisms are psychological devices which people use to avoid psychological harm. In other words, they do not want to go down in their own eyes. Typically, they come into play in situations in which individuals feel a sense of humiliation, shame, indignity and loss of self-respect.
¤ Amongthese mechanismsare:denial,repression,projectionandrationalization.
¤ Denial simply means that one refuses to see the manifest reality.
¤ Basically, these mechanisms enable an individual to deny the harsh reality, and seek refuge in illusions. Use of these mechanisms is a symptom of mental maladjustments.
¤ Repression means that an individual who suffers a traumatic experience completely forgets about it. He removes it from his conscious memory so that it lies buried even unknown to him in his subconscious mind.
¤ Projection is a defence mechanism in which one ascribes his own unacceptable qualities or feelings to other people.
¤ Rationalization is a form of self-deception. It allows one to adjust to an unwelcome situation or outcome by falsely seeing it as to one’s benefit.
¤ Value-expressive attitudes articulate an individual’s core values and self-image. Core attitudes servetwopurposes:(i) establish anindividual’sidentity,showingwho he isor what he stands for; and (ii) secure social approval for him.
¤ Our attitudes arise from our experience: (i) from direct personal experience, or (ii) from observation.
¤ Psychologists mention three learning theories of attitude change: classical conditioning;
operant conditioning; and observational learning.
¤ Classical conditioning can be used to create positive emotional reactions to a person, object or event by associating positive feelings with the target object.
¤ Operant conditioning means changing of behaviour by the use of reinforcement which is given after the desired response. In this method, learning occurs through rewards and punishments for behaviour.
¤ Inclassical conditioning, thebehaviour is involuntary.
¤ In operant conditioning, the learner is active and is rewarded or punished.
¤ People also form attitudes by observing people around them.
¤ Theory of persuasion posits that attitudes of people on any subject can be changed by suitably communicating appropriate information to them. Many aspects are relevant in trying to persuade people to change their attitude on any subject. These are:
(i) object of the attitude i.e. thing, person, group or idea towards which an attitude is directed;
(ii) the message or information;
(iii) the manner in which it is delivered;
(iv) the messenger; and
(v) the target audience i.e. individuals whose attitudes need change.
¤ This attempt at persuasion can be either through the central route or the peripheral route. In thecentralrouteto persuasion,theindividual is presented withdata andmotivated to evaluate the data and arrive at an attitude changing conclusion. In the peripheral route to attitude change, the individual is encouraged to not look at the content but at the source.
¤ The various aspects mentioned above in the theory of persuasion will have to be taken into account whileorganizing campaigns to secure people’s participation.
¤ Social psychologists study the relation between an individual’s attitudes, beliefs (or views) and actions. Earlier, social psychologists thought that attitudes of an individual result in compatible beliefs and actions.
¤ Cognitive consistency is the theory that people try to be consistent in their attitudes, views and in their behaviour.
¤ In theory, consistency between one’s beliefs and behaviour is derived from a feeling for logical consistency.
¤ Wishful thinking means that our thinking, instead of being grounded in reality and logic, is guided by our desires.
¤ When an individual’s beliefs and attitudes oppose each other or the behaviour, he experiences psychological tension or discomfort. He is then motivated to reduce the dissonance through changes in behaviour or cognition. This is called the theory of cognitive dissonance.
¤ For the early social psychologists, it was almost an article of faith that human behaviour is guided by social attitudes.
¤ Later research has led to considerable modification in the simple relation posited between attitudes and resultant behaviour.
¤ In trying to explain the attitude–behaviour connection, social psychologists proposed new theories and conducted studies to empiricallyvalidatesuch theories.
¤ Social psychologists divide attitudes into two categories. The first category consists of general attitudes toward physical objects, linguistic, ethnic, or other social groups, institutions, policies or similar general targets.
¤ The second category comprises attitudes toward performing specific action or behaviours with respect to an object or target or attitudes toward behaviour.
¤ Psychologists also distinguish between broad behavioural categories or multiple-act aggregates and single behaviours. Broad behaviour is made up of many individual components which are its discretemanifestations.
¤ Psychologists tend to analyse attitude-behaviour relation in two ways: (i) connection between general behaviourand multiple-act aggregates;and (ii) connectionbetweenbehaviourspecific attitudes and single behaviour.
¤ As we mentioned earlier, early psychologists took it for granted that attitudes of people govern their behaviour. This view appeared doubtful as a result of two famous studies.
¤ Faced with the evidence about the attitude–behaviour inconsistency, some researchers doubted the validity of survey procedures and the suitability of the samples.
¤ There are two kinds of attitude-behaviour inconsistency. When someone fails to act according to his declared behavioural intention, we have literal inconsistency. Evaluative inconsistency occurs when the evaluation expressed in verbal attitudes (or what is said) does not match with actual behaviour.
¤ Attitude and behaviour, according to some researchers, diverge due to moderating effect of factorsrelated to thepersonperformingthebehaviour,thesituation in which it isperformed, or the characteristics of the attitudeitself.
¤ Better results in terms of attitude-behaviour consistency were obtained when investigators selected a domain of interest and identified a set of behaviours broadly representative of the same behavioural domain. This procedure is an example of the principle of aggregation.
¤ According to the principle of compatibility, measures of attitude and behaviour should contain exactly the same action, target, context, and time elements. Then attitude and behaviour will show consistency.
¤ The MODE Model looks at how attitudes influence perceptions and judgments. It looks at two types of individuals and two modes of activation of general attitudes which result in favourable or unfavourable bias.
¤ Many theorists regard that the nearest cognitive antecedent of actual behavioural performance is the agent’s intention than his attitude. It means that one can accurately predict specific behaviours from the intentions of their performers.
¤ Models of Reasoned Action go beyond prediction of likely behaviour; they discuss factors that lead to formation of intentions.
¤ They assume:
•Intention is the immediate antecedent of actual behaviour.
• Intention,inturn,is determined by attitudetowardthebehaviour,subjectivenorm,and perceived behavioural control.
• Thesedeterminants arethemselves a function,respectively,of underlyingbehavioural, normative, and control beliefs.
• Behavioural, normative, and control beliefs can vary as a function of a wide range of background factors.
• Government servants should avoid the risks of stereotyping individuals and harbouring prejudices.
PRACTICE QUESTIONS
1. Define attitude. What is the process through which attitudes are formed?
2. What do you understand by the structure of attitudes?
3. Outline briefly the psychological functions of attitudes.
4. Write short notes on the following:(i) rationalization (ii) denial (iii) repression (iv) projection (v) Ego defence mechanisms (vi) wishful thinking (vii) cognitive dissonance (viii) stereotyping.
5. What do you understand by (a) classical conditioning and (b) operant conditioning? How will you distinguish between them? Which of the two is more relevant to administrative situations?
6. Outline the main features of the theory of persuasion. Is it of any practical use to government servants? How?
7. What is cognitiveconsistency?
8. What are the two famous studies which showed the mismatch between the professed attitudes of people and their actual behaviour?
9. What are the reasons which prevent people from acting in any matter in accordance with their attitudes?
10. How did social psychologists modify the methodological procedures of their studies to produce greaterconvergencebetweenattitudesand behaviours?
11. Discuss the MODE model. What does it seek to explain?
12. Outline the theory of reasoned action (also called the theory of planned behaviour). In what way does it advance beyond the earlier theories in explaining the connection between attitude and behaviour?
REFERENCES
Charles Stangor, Introduction to Psychology
Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books Principles of Social psychology
NCERT classes XI and XII texts on psychology (The above references are available on internet)
Articles from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on the following topics:
l Attitude (psychology)
l Cognitive dissonance
l Elaboration likelihood model
l Persuasion
l Theory of reasoned action l Theory of planned behavior l Behavioural change theories l Expectancy-valuetheory
l Social psychology
Kendra Cherry, About.com Attitudes - How Attitudes Form, Change and Shape Our Behavior
J. Cooper and K. M. Carlsmith, Cognitive Dissonance
Lisa Rashotte Social influence Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Sociology
Sharon Shavitt & Michelle R. Nelson The Role of Attitude Functions in Persuasion and Social Judgment
