Social Influence Definition
Social influence means any noncoercive technique, device, procedure, or manipulation that relies on the social psychological nature of the organism as the means for creating or changing the belief or behavior of a target, regardless of whether or not this attempt is based on the specific actions of an influence agent or the result of the self-organizing nature of social systems. It can be contrasted with two other forms of influence: (1) power or the control of critical resources, including its most extreme application of war; and (2) outright deception to lead an organism to believe he or she is doing X but in reality is doing something else. In other words, social influence uses tactics that appeal to the social nature of the organism. Among humans, it is their nature to fear, feel dissonance, return a favor, value what is scarce, empathize with others, make judgments dependent on context, seek phantom goals, and easily adopt the social roles of their social group, along with other characteristics. Social influence tactics make use of these attributes of human nature to invoke such processes as conformity (creating or changing behavior or belief to match the response of others), persuasion or attitude change (change in response to a message, discourse, or communication), compliance (change in response to an explicit request), yielding to social forces (change in response to the structure of the social situation), or helping (change in response to someone’s need).
Social Influence Research Topics:
Social Influence Analysis
To understand a eusocial or social species and to predict the behavior of its members, it is essential to analyze the nature of social influence within that species. Such a social influence analysis consists of a description of the social influence tactics used by species members, principles or psychological processes underlying those tactics (e.g., dissonance, social cognition principles), how influence is exchanged within a community (e.g., likely tactics employed, profiling of influence agents), patterning of influence within a species and its communities (e.g., communication networks, channels of influence, social institutions), and theories and models of the operation of influence.
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