Those of us who grew up watching superhero cartoons have usually thought a bit about which of the standard superpowers we’d most like to have. Super strength and super speed have obvious benefits, invisibility could be interesting as well as lucrative, and there’s always a lot to be said for flying. But when it comes right down to it, the ability to control other people would probably be the most useful. After all, who needs to change the course of mighty rivers or bend steel in his bare hands if someone else can be convinced to do it for them? The things we want from life—gourmet food, interesting jobs, big houses, fancy cars—can often be given to us by others, and the things we want most—loving families, loyal friends, admiring children, appreciative employers—cannot be had any other way. Getting others to do what we want them to do would be the ultimate super power.

Luckily, you’ve got it! Social influence is the control of one person’s behavior by another (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004) and it happens all the time. Every one of us influences other people, and every one of us is influenced by them. The techniques we use are numerous and varied, but in the end they all rely on the fact that human beings have three basic motivations: to experience pleasure and to avoid experiencing pain (the hedonic motive), to be accepted and to avoid being rejected (the approval motive), and to believe what is right and to avoid believing what is wrong (the accuracy motive; Bargh, Gollwitzer, & Oettingen, 2010; Fiske, 2010). As you will see, most attempts at social influence appeal to one or more of these three motivations.

Pleasure seeking is the most basic of all motives, and social influence often involves creating situations in which others can achieve more pleasure by doing what we want them to do than by doing something else. Parents, teachers, governments, and businesses influence our behavior by offering rewards and threatening punishments (see FIGURE 12.7). There’s nothing mysterious about how these influence attempts work, and they are often quite effective. When the Republic of Singapore warned its citizens that anyone caught chewing gum in public would face a year in prison and a $5,500 fine, the rest of the world was outraged; but when the outrage subsided, it was hard to ignore the fact that gum chewing in Singapore had fallen to an all-time low. A good caning will get your attention every time.

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You’ll recall from the Learning chapter that even a sea slug will repeat behaviors that are followed by rewards and avoid behaviors that are followed by punishments. Although the same is generally true of human beings, there are some instances in which rewards and punishments can backfire. For example, children in one study were allowed to draw with colored markers. Some were given a “Good Player Award” (the “rewarded” children) and some were not (the “unrewarded” children). The next day, all of the children were again given markers, but this time no awards were offered. The results showed that the previously rewarded children drew with the markers less than the previously unrewarded children did (Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett, 1973). Why? Because previously rewarded children had come to think of drawing as something one does to get a reward—and since they weren’t going to receive a reward the second day, then why the heck should they draw a picture? (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999)? Rewards and punishments can also backfire because people resent being manipulated. Researchers placed signs in two restrooms on a college campus: “Please don’t write on these walls” and “Do not write on these walls under any circumstances.” Two weeks later, the walls in the second restroom had more graffiti on the walls, presumably because students didn’t appreciate the threatening tone of the second sign and wrote on the walls just to prove that they could (Pennebaker & Sanders, 1976).

Other people stand between us and starvation, predation, loneliness, and all the other things that make getting shipwrecked such an unpopular pastime. We depend on others for safety, sustenance, and solidarity, and so we are powerfully motivated to have others like us, accept us, and approve of us (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Leary, 2010). Like the hedonic motive, the approval motive can be a lever for social influence.

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Normative Influence

When you get on an elevator, you are supposed to face forward and not talk to the person next to you even if you were talking to that person before you got on the elevator unless you are the only two people on the elevator in which case it’s okay to talk and face sideways but still not backward. Although no one ever taught you this particularly long rule of elevator etiquette, you probably picked it up somewhere along the way. The unwritten rules that govern social behavior are called norms, which are customary standards for behavior that are widely shared by members of a culture (Cialdini, 2013; Miller & Prentice, 1996).

We learn norms with exceptional ease and we obey them with exceptional fidelity because we know that if we don’t, others won’t approve of us. For example, every human culture has a norm of reciprocity, which is the unwritten rule that people should benefit those who have benefited them (Gouldner, 1960). When a friend buys you lunch, you must eventually return the favor; and if you don’t, your friend will eventually get a new one. Indeed, the norm of reciprocity is so strong that when researchers randomly pulled the names of strangers from a telephone directory and sent them all Christmas cards, they received Christmas cards back from most (Kunz & Woolcott, 1976).

Norms can be a powerful tool for social influence. Normative influence is a phenomenon that occurs when another person’s behavior provides information about what is appropriate (see FIGURE 12.8). For example, waiters and waitresses know all about the norm of reciprocity, and so they often give customers a piece of candy along with the bill, hoping that customers who receive a free candy will feel obligated to do “a little extra” for the server who did “a little extra” for them. Research shows that this little trick works quite nicely (Strohmetz et al., 2002).

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Conformity

People can influence us by invoking familiar norms, such as the norm of reciprocity. But if you’ve ever found yourself in a fancy restaurant, sneaking a peek at the person next to you in the hopes of discovering whether the little fork is meant to be used for shrimp or salad, then you know that other people can also influence us by defining new norms in ambiguous, confusing, or novel situations. Conformity is the tendency to do what others do simply because others are doing it, and it results in part from normative influence.

In a classic study, male participants sat in a room with seven other men who appeared to be ordinary participants but who were actually trained actors (Asch, 1951, 1956). An experimenter explained that the participants would be shown cards with three printed lines and that his job was simply to say which of the three lines matched a “standard line” that was printed on another card (see FIGURE 12.9). The experimenter held up a card and then asked each man to answer in turn. The real participant was among the last to be called on. Everything went well on the first two trials, but then on the third trial something really strange happened: The actors all began giving the same wrong answer! What did the real participants do? Seventy-five percent of them conformed and announced the wrong answer on at least one trial. Subsequent research has shown that these participants didn’t actually misperceive the length of the lines, but were instead succumbing to normative influence (Asch, 1955; Nemeth & Chiles, 1988). Giving the wrong answer was apparently “the right thing to do,” and so participants did it. The behavior of others can tell us what is proper, appropriate, expected, and accepted—in other words, it can define a norm—and once a norm is defined, we feel obliged to honor it. This fact can be put to good use. When the Sacramento Municipal Utility District randomly selected 35,000 customers and sent them electric bills showing how their energy consumption compared to that of their neighbors, consumption fell by 2% (Kaufman, 2009).

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Obedience

In most situations, there are a few people whom we all recognize as having special authority both to define the norms and to enforce them. The guy who works at the movie theater may be some high school fanboy with a bad haircut and a 10:00 p.m. curfew, but in the theater he has authority. So when he asks you to stop texting in the middle of the movie, you do as you are told. Obedience is the tendency to do what authorities tell us to do.

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Why do we obey authorities? Well, yes, sometimes they have guns. But while authorities are often capable of rewarding and punishing us, research shows that much of their influence is normative (Tyler, 1990). Psychologist Stanley Milgram (1963) demonstrated this in one of psychology’s most infamous experiments. The participants in this experiment met a middle-aged man who was introduced as another participant but who was actually a trained actor. An experimenter in a lab coat explained that the participant would play the role of teacher and the actor would play the role of learner. The teacher and learner would sit in different rooms, the teacher would read words to the learner over a microphone, and the learner would then repeat the words back to the teacher. If the learner made a mistake, the teacher would press a button that delivered an electric shock to the learner (see FIGURE 12.10). The shock-generating machine (which, by the way, was totally fake) offered 30 levels of shock, ranging from 15 volts (labeled slight shock) to 450 volts (labeled Danger: severe shock).

After the learner was strapped into his chair, the experiment began. When the learner made his first mistake, the participant dutifully delivered a 15-volt shock. As the learner made more mistakes, he received more shocks. When the participant delivered the 75-volt shock, the learner cried out in pain. At 150 volts, the learner screamed, “I refuse to go on. Let me out!” With every shock, the learner’s screams became more agonized. Then, after receiving the 330-volt shock, the learner stopped responding altogether. Participants were naturally upset by all this and typically asked the experimenter to stop, but the experimenter simply replied, “You have no choice, you must go on.” The experimenter never threatened the participant with punishment of any kind. Rather, he just stood there with his clipboard in hand and calmly instructed the participant to continue. So what did the participants do? Eighty percent of the participants continued to shock the learner even after he screamed, complained, pleaded, and then fell silent. And 62% went all the way, delivering the highest possible voltage. Although Milgram’s study was conducted nearly half a century ago, a recent replication revealed about the same rate of obedience (Burger, 2009).

Would normal people electrocute a stranger just because some guy in a lab coat told them to? The answer, it seems, is yes—as long as normal means being sensitive to norms. The participants in this experiment knew that hurting others is not always wrong: Doctors give painful injections, and teachers give painful exams. There are many situations in which it is permissible to cause someone to suffer. The experimenter’s calm demeanor and persistent instruction suggested that he—and not the participant—knew what was appropriate in this particular situation, and so the participant did what the authority ordered.

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If you know just two things—first, that apples taste good, and second, that there are apples in the refrigerator—then you know exactly what to do when you are hungry. Open the fridge! Actions rely on both an attitude, which is an enduring positive or negative evaluation of an object or event, and a belief, which is an enduring piece of knowledge about an object or event. Attitudes tell us what we should do (eat an apple because they are good), and beliefs tell us how to do it (start by opening the fridge because that’s where the apples are). So if our attitudes or beliefs are inaccurate, then our actions are likely to be fruitless. Because we rely so much on our attitudes and beliefs, it isn’t surprising that we are motivated to have the right ones. As you will see, social influence often appeals to this basic motivation.

Informational Influence

If everyone in the mall suddenly ran screaming for the exit, you’d probably join the stampede—not because you were afraid that the panicked people would disapprove of you if you didn’t, but because their behavior would suggest to you that there was something worth running from. Informational influence is a phenomenon that occurs when another person’s behavior provides information about what is true. You can observe the power of informational influence yourself just by standing in the middle of the sidewalk, tilting back your head, and staring at the top of a tall building. Research suggests that within just a few minutes, other people will stop and stare too (Milgram, Bickman, & Berkowitz, 1969). Why? They will assume that if you are staring, then there must be something worth staring at.

You are the constant target of informational influence. When a salesperson tells you that “most people buy the iPad with extra memory,” she is artfully suggesting that you should take other people’s behavior as information about the product. Advertisements that refer to soft drinks as “popular” or books as “best sellers” are reminding you that other people are buying these particular drinks and books, which suggests that they know something you don’t and that you’d be wise to follow their example. Situation comedies provide laugh tracks because the producers know that when you hear other people laughing, you will mindlessly assume that something must be funny (Fein, Goethals, & Kugler, 2007; Nosanchuk & Lightstone, 1974). Bars and nightclubs make people stand in line even when there is plenty of room inside because the owners of these establishments know that passersby will see the line and assume that the club is worth waiting for. In short, the world is full of objects and events about which we know little, and we can often cure our ignorance by paying attention to the way in which others are acting toward them.

Persuasion

Persuasion is a phenomenon that occurs when a person’s attitudes or beliefs are influenced by a communication from another person (Albarracín & Vargas, 2010; Petty & Wegener, 1998). How does it work? When the next presidential election rolls around, the candidates will promise to persuade you to vote for them by demonstrating that their positions on the issues are the most practical, intelligent, fair, and beneficial. Having made that promise, they will then devote most of their financial resources to persuading you by other means—for example, by dressing nicely and smiling a lot, by surrounding themselves with famous athletes and movie stars, by repeatedly pairing their opponent’s picture with Osama bin Laden’s, and so on. The candidates will promise to engage in systematic persuasion, which refers to the process by which attitudes or beliefs are changed by appeals to reason, but they will spend most of their time and money engaged in heuristic persuasion, which refers to the process by which attitudes or beliefs are changed by appeals to habit or emotion (Chaiken, 1980; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). (You’ll recall from the Language and Thought chapter that heuristics are simple shortcuts or “rules of thumb.”)

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Which form of persuasion will be more effective? That depends on whether you are willing and able to weigh evidence and analyze arguments. In one study, students heard a speech that contained either strong or weak arguments in favor of instituting comprehensive exams at their school (Petty, Cacioppo, & Goldman, 1981). Some students were told that the speaker was a Princeton University professor, and others were told that the speaker was a high school student—a bit of information that could be used as a shortcut to decide whether to believe the speech. Some students were told that their university was considering implementing these exams right away, thereby giving these students a strong motivation to analyze the evidence, and others were told that their university was considering implementing these exams long after they graduated, thereby giving these students little motivation to analyze the evidence. As FIGURE 12.11 shows, when students were highly motivated to analyze the evidence, they were systematically persuaded—that is, their attitudes and beliefs were influenced by the strength of the arguments and not by the status of the speaker. But when students were not highly motivated to analyze the evidence, they were heuristically persuaded—that is, their attitudes and beliefs were influenced by the status of the speaker and not by the strength of the arguments.

Consistency

If a friend told you that rabbits had just staged a coup in Antarctica and were halting all carrot exports, you probably wouldn’t turn on CNN. You’d know right away that your friend must be joking (or on drugs) because the statement is logically inconsistent with other things that you know are true—for instance, that rabbits do not foment revolution and Antarctica does not export carrots. People evaluate the accuracy of new beliefs by assessing their consistency with old beliefs, and although this is not a foolproof method for determining whether something is true, it provides a pretty good approximation. Because people are strongly motivated to have beliefs that are true, and because consistency is an indicator of truth, they are strongly motivated to have beliefs that are consistent as well.

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The motivation to have consistent beliefs leaves people vulnerable to social influence. Consider the foot-in-the-door technique, which is a social influence technique that involves making a small request before making a large request (Burger, 1999). In one study (Freedman & Fraser, 1966), experimenters went to a neighborhood and knocked on doors to see if they could convince homeowners to let them install a big, ugly “Drive Carefully” sign in their front yards. One group of homeowners was simply asked if they would allow the ugly sign to be installed, and only 17% said yes. A second group of homeowners was first asked to sign a petition urging the state legislature to promote safe driving (which almost all agreed to do) and was then asked to allow the installation of the ugly sign. And 55% said yes! Why would homeowners be more likely to grant two requests than one?

Just imagine how the homeowners in the second group felt. They had just signed a petition stating that they thought safe driving was important, but they really didn’t want an ugly sign in their front yards. And yet, saying yes to the petition and no to the sign would be obviously inconsistent. As they wrestled with this dilemma, they probably began to experience a feeling called cognitive dissonance, which is an unpleasant state that arises when a person recognizes the inconsistency of his or her actions, attitudes, or beliefs (Festinger, 1957). When people experience cognitive dissonance, they naturally try to alleviate it, and one way to alleviate cognitive dissonance is to restore consistency among one’s actions, attitudes, and beliefs (Aronson, 1969; Cooper & Fazio, 1984). Allowing the ugly sign to be installed in their yards accomplished that goal. Recent research shows that this phenomenon can be used to good effect: Hotel guests who were asked at check-in to commit to being a “Friend of the Earth” were 25% more likely to reuse their towels during their stay (Baca-Motes et al., 2013).

We are motivated to be consistent, but there are inevitably times when we just can’t be—for example, when we kindly tell a friend that her new hairstyle is “cutting edge” when we actually think it resembles a wet skunk after an unfortunate encounter with a snowblower. Why don’t we experience cognitive dissonance under such circumstances? Because complementing a friend’s hairstyle may be inconsistent with the belief that it is actually hideous, but it is consistent with the belief that one should be nice to one’s friends. When small inconsistencies are justified by large consistencies, cognitive dissonance does not occur.

For example, participants in one study were asked to perform a dull task that involved turning knobs one way, then the other way, and then back again. After the participants were sufficiently bored, the experimenter explained that he desperately needed a few more people to volunteer for the study, and he asked the participants to go into the hallway, find another person, and tell that person that the knob-turning task was great fun. The experimenter offered some participants $1 to tell this lie, and offered other participants $20. All participants agreed to tell the lie, and after they did so, they were asked to report their true enjoyment of the knob-turning task. The results showed that participants liked the task more when they were paid $1 than when they were paid $20 to lie about it (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). Why? Because although the belief that I said the task was fun was inconsistent with the belief that the task was really dull, it was perfectly consistent with the belief that $20 is a whole lot of money. Because the large payment justified the lie, only those participants who received the small payment experienced cognitive dissonance, and then reduced it by changing their beliefs about the enjoyableness of the task.

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