Kurt Ryan P.

Jesura BA-PolSci 4

How can people use their knowledge of social influence to influence others?

Using Descriptive Norms and Injunctive Norms, people can exert social influence
over others based on their understanding of social influence. Many psychologists have
made distinctions between norms and the role that they play in influencing social
behavior. One distinguishable difference between norms that simply describe what
people in a group do and norms that describe what people in a group should do is that
the former are more durable. According to Cialdini et al., Descriptive Norms are "the
norms of what is," which is a sort of informational summary of how a group behaves,
while injunctive norms are "the perception of what most people approve or disapprove
(or the norms of ought)" (p. 203). There are various types of norms that are thought to
determine different types of influence. It is believed that Descriptive, Informational
norms lead to influence through education and conversion — the process of conforming
to Descriptive, informational norms has been referred to as "Informational social
influence," and the attitudes that form, or the behavior that results from this kind of
influence, is considered genuine and unstrained. When norms are about what a group
considers appropriate, moral, or necessary — "Injunctive Norms" — the process of
conforming has been called “Normative group pressure,” and the attitudes that form, or
behavior that results from this kind of influence is seen as managed, ambivalent, less
genuine, and often conflicted.

There is compelling evidence for the existence of different types of normative

influence, according to recent research. Jacobson and colleagues demonstrated that
Injunctive Norms are associated with higher levels of interpersonally oriented self-
awareness as well as greater levels of conflict over conformity decisions. According to
their findings, exhaustion or depletion results in a decrease in conformity to injunctive
norm information, but an increase in conformity to descriptive norm information is
observed. Conformity to descriptive and Injunctive Norms is motivated by a variety of
different factors. Similar findings were made by Schultz and colleagues, who discovered
that Descriptive Norms had greater influence under promotion rather than prevention
focus, whereas Injunctive Norm's influence was unaffected by regulatory focus; the
psychological underpinnings of conformity differ depending on the type of normative
information received.

REFERENCE:

Cialdini RB, Jacobson RP, Mortensen CR,: Bodies obliged and unbound: differentiated
response tendencies for injunctive and descriptive social norms. J Pers Soc Psychol
2011, 100:433-448.

V, van Herpen E, Fischer AR, van Trijp HC: Regulatory fit effects for injunctive versus
descriptive social norms: evidence from the promotion of sustainable products. Market
Lett 2013, 24:191-203.`

Schultz PW, Nolan JM, Cialdini RB, Goldstein NJ, Griskevicius V: The constructive,
destructive, and reconstructive power of social norms. Psychol Sci 2007, 18:429-434.