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Introduction: Social influence in action

Article  in  Group Processes & Intergroup Relations · September 2011

DOI: 10.1177/1368430211410214

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University of Exeter The University of Queensland
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RUNNING HEAD: Social influence in action

Social Influence in Action

Joanne R. Smith1, Winnifred R. Louis2, & P. Wesley Schultz3

1
University of Exeter
2
University of Queensland, School of Psychology
3
California State University, San Marcos

WORD COUNT: 2544

Author’s note:

Address correspondence to Joanne R. Smith, School of Psychology, University of Exeter,

Exeter, UK, EX4 4QG (j.r.smith@exeter.ac.uk)

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Abstract

The study of social influence is central to social psychology and to understanding group

processes and intergroup relations. Social influence research covers a broad range of topics,

from persuasion and attitude change, to compliance and conformity, to collective action and

social change. This Special Issue presents ten empirical articles that represent the diversity

of current basic and applied research on social influence.

Keywords: social influence, group processes, intergroup relations, behaviour change

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Social influence is a common feature of everyday life: we either try to influence

others or are influenced by them many times each day. This influence can be somewhat

banal – such as what type of restaurant to go to for dinner – or more significant – such as

whether to attend protests to try to change government policy, or even to overthrow a

government. Social influence occurs when an individual’s thoughts, feelings, and actions

are affected by other people. It is a fundamental part of relations both within group and

between groups. Social influence takes many different forms, and can be seen in processes

of conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, minority

influence, and social change, to name but a few topics into which social influence research

extends its reach.

The study of social influence has contributed significantly to the development of

social psychology’s identity as a scientific discipline. Indeed, it is interesting to note that

many of the classic studies in social psychology are, at their core, studies of social

influence. For example, Sherif’s (1935) study on the autokinetic effect showed the power of

social influence to influence people’s perceptions of highly ambiguous stimuli (i.e., how far

a point of light – actually stationary – appeared to move in a darkened room). Asch’s

(1956) studies showed the power of social influence to change people’s perceptions of

highly unambiguous stimuli (i.e., a comparison of line lengths). Milgram’s (1974)

obedience studies highlighted just how far individuals were willing to go to follow the

orders of an authority figure, while Moscovici and Faucheux (1972) illustrated the ways in

which minorities could change the opinions of a majority. Finally, reflecting the inherently

applied nature and “real world” focus of social influence research, Lewin’s (1947) action

research on promoting offal consumption among housewives highlighted the way in which

the processes involved in group discussion can transform attitudes and behaviour.
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Beyond the classic studies, contemporary interest in social influence is shown in the

last five years with the establishment of a new journal dedicated to this topic (Social

Influence). The papers included in this Special Issue also echo the themes of recent edited

academic volumes on social influence topics, such as resistance (Rebels in Groups; Jetten

& Hornsey, 2010), promoting pro-social behaviour (The Psychology of Prosocial

Behaviour; Sturmer & Snyder, 2009), collective action (Social and Psychological

Dynamics of Collective Action; Iyer & van Zomeren, 2009), and behaviour change (People-

centered initiatives for increasing energy savings; Ehrhardt-Martinez & Laitner, 2010).

Moreover, interest in social influence is increasingly reflected in more popular science

volumes, such as compliance (Influence; Cialdini, 2008), persuasion (Yes! 50 secrets from

the science of persuasion; Goldstein, Martin, & Cialdini, 2007), and behaviour change

(Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness; Thaler & Sunstein,

2009).

It is clear, therefore, that the questions first raised by the classic studies continue to

fascinate and puzzle both social influence researchers and everyday individuals today. And

these types of questions are taken up by the contributors whose work is included in this

Special Issue. For example, are there different types of social norms and do these norms

have different influences on behaviour? What is the role of group membership and social

identity on conformity and resistance to social influence? When do social influence

processes work to change behaviour and when do they backfire? How does social influence

impact upon broader social change, such as in minority influence or collective action? The

research included in this Special Issue addresses these fundamental questions with a range

of methodologies, including surveys, laboratory and field experiments, and applied

interventions. The papers cover a range of topics, such as health behaviour, environmental

behaviour, anti-social behaviour, social inequality, and social change. An important feature
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of this special issue is that the papers focus not only on understanding the basic processes

of social influence, and the impact of social influence processes on attitudes, cognitions,

and beliefs, but also consider and, in several cases, actually test the ways in which such

theoretical insights can be applied to “real world” social problems.

The aim of this Special Issue of Group Processes and Intergroup Relations is to

bring together cutting-edge basic research that examines the processes underpinning social

influence and applied research that tests the impact of social influence on real world

attitudes and actions. In doing so, our goal is to shine a spotlight on the way in which social

influence processes permeate all aspects of individual and group life from deciding whether

or not to take advantage of a unique offer, to decisions in relation to health and

environmental actions, to responses to interventions designed to change our behaviour, to

whether or not individuals and groups take action for social change.

Overview of the Special Issue

With these brief introductory remarks, we turn now to a brief overview of the

articles included in this special issue. We have grouped the contributions around three

themes:

Social influence and identity processes. The first four contributions focus on the

impact of individual-level processes, different types of norms, and identity processes on

openness to influence and individual behaviour. van Quaquebeke (2011) focuses on

followers’ openness to a leader’s influence, a critical factor in determining the effectiveness

of a leader. His research considers not only the match between the current leader and the

follower’s ideal leader (i.e., their leader prototype), but also the impact of follower

individual differences in the extent to which they consider themselves to be leadership

material and in followers’ propensity to rely on self-perceptions in their assessment of

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others (i.e., social comparison orientation). The results represent an extension of leader

categorization theory, highlighting that it is important to consider the ways in which

followers see themselves in order to understand the impact of leaders. Fornara, Carrus,

Passafaro, and Bonnes (2011) examine the impact of different kinds of social norms, such

as injunctive versus descriptive norms, on recycling behaviour. Their paper also discusses

the role of local norms, described as the norms associated with people who share the same

spatial-physical setting. The results from a series of structural equation models show that

local norms can be differentiated from subjective norms, and that local norms explain

unique variance in reported recycling behaviour beyond that accounted for by subjective

norms. The next article, by Livingstone, Young, and Manstead (2011) considers how group

norms, identification, and individual attitudes influence responses when a behaviour (i.e.,

heavy alcohol consumption) is defining for a group’s identity (i.e., university students).

Their results reveal that those who identify strongly with a group can react against, rather

than conform, to normative information if they perceive that the norms presented run

counter to their image of the group. Following on from Livingstone et al.’s work on norms,

identity, and alcohol consumption, Neighbors et al. (2011) evaluate the impact of two types

of social norms interventions – personalized norms feedback and social norms marketing

advertisements – developed for abstaining or light-drinking students. Their results reveal

support for both types of social norms interventions compared to a control condition, but

that such effects were stronger for the social norms marketing intervention, particularly for

students who identified more strongly with the typical student on their campus.

Social influence and changing behaviour. The way in which social influence

processes can be harnessed to change behaviour is addressed by the next four contributions.

Burger’s (2011) work focuses on a classic social influence topic – compliance – and

examines the effect of a perceived unique opportunity on willingness to take up that

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opportunity. Results reveal that when people believe that they had an opportunity available

to few others they are more likely to comply with a request, even when supplies of the

product are not limited and the opportunity is due to pure chance, and that this effect is

mediated by the perceived uniqueness of the opportunity. In contrast, Keizer (2011)

examines the factors that can operate to reduce compliance with a commonly encountered

request: public signs prohibiting actions such as littering or graffiti. In a series of field

experiments, Keizer shows that the presence of cues that signal that others have violated the

request in the prohibition sign not only increases (rather than decreases) violations of the

very same norm, but it can also increase violations of other norms (a cross norm reversal

effect).

Social norms marketing, which attempts to reduce misperceptions in a community

about how many of its members engage in certain behaviours or hold certain attitudes, has

become a popular technique for behaviour change, particularly when trying to reduce

alcohol consumption or increase pro-environmental behaviour. Nolan (2011) investigates

the cognitive changes produced by such interventions by testing the extent and durability of

changes in normative beliefs after a single social norms communication. Results reveal that

social norms communications not only alter the normative beliefs specified in the original

message, but also “spillover” to other behaviours and referents not specified in the original

message, highlighting the ways in which such communications can have a positive effect

beyond their original intention. Perkins and Perkins (2011) report on a social norms

intervention to reduce bullying among adolescents and find that, as predicted by social

norms theory, students overestimated the frequency of bullying and the level of support for

bullying among their peers. Drawing on social norms theory, the paper reports an

intervention that exposed students to accurate norms about bullying which produced
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significant reductions not only in students’ perceptions about bullying but also in reported

bullying behaviour.

Social influence and social change. The final three contributions address the ways

in which social influence processes operate in relation to broader social change as opposed

to the types of individual-level change investigated in the other contributions. Butera and

colleagues (2011) demonstrate an interesting cognitive technique to challenge hostility to

feminism, the re-association technique, and test its efficacy on male and female targets

using male and female sources. Ingroup sources are more effective, as norms researchers

might expect. The data here highlight the vital role that men play when they stand up

against sexism. Butera and colleagues discuss the role of threat in this process, and the

importance of intragroup communications in intergroup conflict as actors seek to exert

social influence to change their own group’s stance and tactics.

Picking up on the topic of advantaged group change agents, Van Zomeren and

colleagues (2011) discuss a critical factor in motivating advocacy for social change among

the privileged: moral convictions. An interesting question is the extent to which such moral

convictions about the injustice of inequality override an advantaged group identity which is

innately exploitative versus arising from and being fuelled by one which can be imbued

with egalitarian norms. In this paper, it is advantaged group members’ identification with

the disadvantaged group that is associated with moral convictions and intentions to engage

in collective action to advocate for social change.

Finally, Shaffer and Prislin (2011) analyse the impact of successful minority

influence and social change when minorities win either tolerance for the minority position,

versus when minorities convert majorities to their point of view. When minorities convert

majorities to their point of view, interestingly, the minorities are less committed to the

changed group and are less prepared to make individual sacrifices to benefit the group. This
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alteration in the change agent as a result of different (equally successful) influence targets

seems likely to have broader implications, particularly as pro-socially minded dissidents,

change agents, and deviants attract increasing research attention.

Concluding Remarks

A greater understanding of social influence has both theoretical implications, in

terms of explaining the relationship between the individual and actors in their social words,

and practical implications, in terms of being to effect positive behaviour change. It is

therefore timely to consider the ways in which social influence processes not only

transform individual attitudes and behaviour, but have the potential to transform groups and

societies. This Special Issue offers a diverse set of empirical articles that highlight recent

advances in this respect, answer time-honoured questions about group processes and

intergroup relations, and demonstrate the importance of studying social influence in action.
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References

Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: A minority of one against a

unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 70, 1-70.

Ehrhardt-Martinez, K., & Laitner, J. (2010) (Eds). People-centered initiatives for

increasing energy savings. Online book available at: http://www.aceee.org/people-

centered-energy-savings.

Goldstein, N. J., Martin, S. J., & Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Yes! 50 secrets from the science of

persuasion. Profile Books.

Iyer, A., & van Zomeren, M. (2009) (Eds.). Social and psychological dynamics of

collective action: From theory and research to policy and practice. Special issue of

the Journal of Social Issues.

Jetten, J., & Hornsey, M. J. (2010) (Eds.). Rebels in groups: Dissent, deviance, difference,

and defiance. Wiley-Blackwell.

Lewin, K. (1947). Group decision and social change. In T. M. Newcomb & E. L. Hartley

(Eds.), Readings in social psychology (pp. 330-344). New York: Holt, Rinehart, and

Winston.

Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority. London: Tavistock.

Moscovici, S., & Faucheux, C. (1972). Social influence, conformity bias, and the study of

active minorities. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology

(Vol. 6, pp. 149-202). London: Academic Press.

Sherif, M. (1935). The psychology of social norms. New York: Harper and Brothers.

Sturmer, S., & Snyder, M. (2009) (Eds). The psychology of prosocial behaviour. Wiley-

Blackwell.

Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2009). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth,

and happiness. Little, Brown.

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Biographical notes

Joanne R. Smith is a senior lecturer in social psychology at the University of Exeter. She

received her PhD in 2003 from the University of Queensland on the impact of group norms

and social identity on the attitude-behaviour relationship and was a postdoctoral research

fellow at the University of Queensland from 2003 to 2007. Her research interests include

social influence, norms, behaviour change, and social identity and she has investigated

these topics across a range of behavioural domains including health and environmental

behaviour.

Winnifred R. Louis is a senior lecturer in social psychology at the University of

Queensland. She received her PhD in 2001 from McGill University (Montreal, Canada) on

decision-making in intergroup conflict. Her research interests include decision-making,

social influence, injunctive and descriptive norms, identity, and ego-depletion.

P. Wesley Schultz is Professor of Psychology at California State University, San Marcos.

His research focuses on social influence, particularly in the areas of social norms and social

marketing. He is currently conducting a number of studies utilizing social influence theories

to promote behavioural changes that respond to global climate change, conserve natural

resources, and encourage individuals to adopt more sustainable lifestyles.

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