Social consensus (bandwagon)

 The more it appears that everyone is doing "it" or supports a given position, the more likely others will join in and agree. For example, Milgram, Bickman, and Berkowitz (1969) positioned confederates on a busy city street and had them look up at a building. Passersby readily copied the “looking up” response with overall conformity described by a negatively accelerating curve as a function of number of those looking up (Latané, 1981). Social consensus engages two psychological processes that promote conformity (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955). First, a social consensus provides information or social proof about what to do and think via a simple rule: “if other people are doing it, it must be correct.” The informational value of social agreement can be seen in experiments that expose subjects to the knowledge that others support a given cause or action. For example, Reingen (1982) conducted five field experiments in which a target is first shown a list of other compliers and then asked to comply with a request; the results showed that such a procedure increases both money and blood donations (see Moore, 1921 for a variation). Similarly, Nosanchuk and Lightstone (1974) and Axsom, Yates, and

Chaiken (1987) showed that the presence of canned laughter and other audience responses could serve as a cue to elicit agreement. Second, social consensus provides normative influences or social pressure to agree or go along with the group. We saw previously that an opinion deviant receives much negative attention and sanctions. Although such attention can result in influence in certain conditions (De Drue, this volume), it is for the most part a painful psychological state as the target attempts to fulfill a need to belong (Baumeister &Leary, 1995) and conversely to avoid ostracism or exclusion from others (Williams, 2001). Such social pressure can be a powerful force to induce agreement with others. Consider the classic experiments of Asch (1951; 1952) in which six confederates select a clearly incorrect line in an ostensible perceptual task. In this research, subjects are confronted with two conflicting goals – to be correct or to maintain a positive relationship with the group. Although few subjects actually come to believe that the incorrect line is of a different length (informational influence), over half of the subjects in the Asch studies conformed at least once and swung to the majority on over 35% of the trials. The social pressure of the Asch procedure can readily be observed in the replication of the study I conducted for Dateline NBC (Pratkanis, 1997). As one subject put it after conforming to the group: “I didn’t want to be different anymore.”

 

Social norms

A norm is a rule that states expectations about the appropriate and correct behavior in a situation – for example, tip 15%, don’t urinate in public, and African-Americans shouldn’t be CEO. As Goldstein and Cialdini (this volume) point out, norms can be either descriptive (a summary of what most people do) or injunctive (an expectation of what ought to be done). As such, a norm represents an implied social consensus and thus carries both informational influence (especially descriptive norms) and social

pressures (especially in ought norms) useful for influencing behavior. For example, Sherif (1936) found that groups quickly developed norms that would in turn guide judgment and perceptions of the autokinetic effect. Pettigrew (1991) has repeatedly observed the power of norms in the regulation of interracial beliefs and behavior. Perkins (2003) describes a number of studies showing that informing college students about the actual norm in regards to substance abuse (less students engage in substance abuse than most students think) may result in a decrease in such abuses. Goldstein and Cialdini (this volume) review a number of experiments illustrating the use of norms in social influence.

 

Social modeling

The presence of a person (either live or on film) demonstrating a given behavior generally increases the probability of the emission of that behavior by observers. In other words, social models are a source of social proof on what to do in any given situation. For example, Bryan and Test (1967) found that passersby were more likely to contribute to the Salvation Army or help a distressed motorist with the presence of a helping model. Bandura and Menlove (1968) found that children who were afraid of dogs reduced their avoidance of dogs after watching models interacting nonanxiously with dogs. 

Phillips (1986) observed that watching highly-publicized prizefights increased the homicide rate in the viewing area. The tendency to follow and imitate social models is especially likely for models who are high in prestige, power, and status, are rewarded for performing a behavior to be imitated, provide information on how to perform the behavior, and are attractive and competent (Pratkanis & Aronson, 2001).

 

Social reinforcement

Insko (1965) demonstrated the power of a verbal reinforcer to influence attitudes. In his experiment, students were contacted via phone to take a survey of campus attitudes. On this survey, students were asked if the agreed or disagreed with 14 statements concerning a campus Aloha week. The survey-taker then positively reinforced with the word “good” for agreement (or disagreement) with each statement. A week later, Insko surveyed the students in an unrelated class and found that those who were

reinforced for agreeing with Aloha week statements evaluated it more favorably than those reinforced for disagreeing with such statements. Insko and Cialdini (1969: Cialdini & Insko, 1969) advanced a two-factor theory of verbal reinforcement: verbal reinforcement (a) provides information about the survey-taker’s opinion (or social proof) and (b) indicates that the survey-taker likes or approves of the respondent (social pressure).

 

Multiple sources

An increase in the number of sources for a communication can, under certain

conditions, results in an increase in persuasion. For example, Harkins and Petty (1981a; see also Harkins & Petty, 1981b) found that three different speakers delivering three different cogent arguments were more effective than one source delivering the same three arguments (see Lee & Nass, 2004 for a replication using synthetic voices). Through experimental analysis, Harkins and Petty showed that increasing the number of sources of a communication increases thinking about each argument. This leads to more persuasion when the arguments are strong and compelling, but less persuasion when the arguments are weak.

 

Public audience

The presence of an audience can increase concerns for maintaining a positive public image; this can result in increased compliance when the request is one that is socially approved. For example, Rind and Benjamin (1994) asked male shoppers to purchase raffle tickets to support the United Way; male shoppers with a female companion purchased almost twice as many tickets compared to when they were alone. Similarly, Froming, Walker, and Lopyan (1982) found that subjects were more or less willing to use shocks as punishment in an experiment depending on the perceived beliefs of an evaluative audience. In contrast, when compliance is not socially-approved (say, when the person would look wish-washy or weak), the presence of a public audience may hinder persuasion.  (As an aside, the presence of an audience can also facilitate or hinder performance on a task; see Guerin, 1993; Zajonc, 1965).

 

Fleeting interactions

 A number of studies demonstrate that having a fleeting, brief social interaction with the target of a request increases compliance with a request. Such fleeting interactions have included introducing yourself (Garrity & Degelman, 1990), a gentle touch (Gueguen & Fisher-Lokou, 2002; Segrin, 1993 for a review), asking about how a person feels (Howard, 1990), engaging in a short dialogue before asking the request (Dolinski, Nawrat, & Rudak, 2001), personalizing a message (Howard & Kerin, 2004), and just sitting in a room with someone (Burger, Soroka, Gonzaga, Murphy, & Somervell, 2001). There are a number of explanations for these effects including the invoking of a liking heuristic (Burger et al. 2001), mimicking friendship (Dolinski et al., 2001), inducing positive mood, desire to maintain a social relationship, reciprocity, and individuating the requester and thus making her or him seem more human. 

Sorting out these explanations will be a fruitful research endeavor (see Burger, this volume for an

introduction to the issues).

 

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