Social proof

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Social proof (or informational social influence) is a psychological and social phenomenon wherein people copy the actions of others in choosing how to behave in a given situation. The term was coined by Robert Cialdini in his 1984 book Influence: Science and Practice .

Contents

Social proof is used in ambiguous social situations where people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior, and is driven by the assumption that the surrounding people possess more knowledge about the current situation.

The effects of social influence can be seen in the tendency of large groups to conform. This is referred to in some publications as the herd behavior . Although social proof reflects a rational motive to take into account the information possessed by others, formal analysis shows that it can cause people to converge too quickly upon a single distinct choice, so that decisions of even larger groups of individuals may be grounded in very little information (see information cascades).

Social proof is one type of conformity. When a person is in a situation where they are unsure of the correct way to behave, they will often look to others for clues concerning the correct behavior. When "we conform because we believe that others' interpretation of an ambiguous situation is more accurate than ours and will help us choose an appropriate course of action", [1] it is informational social influence. This is contrasted with normative social influence wherein a person conforms to be liked or accepted by others.

Social proof often leads not only to public compliance (conforming to the behavior of others publicly without necessarily believing it is correct) but also private acceptance (conforming out of a genuine belief that others are correct). [2] Social proof is more powerful when being accurate is more important and when others are perceived as especially knowledgeable.


Mechanisms

Uncertainty about the correct conclusion

Uncertainty is a major factor that encourages the use of social proof. One study found that when evaluating a product, consumers were more likely to incorporate the opinions of others through the use of social proof when their own experiences with the product were ambiguous, leaving uncertainty as to the correct conclusion that they should make. [3]

Similarity to the surrounding group

Similarity also motivates the use of social proof; when a person perceives themselves as similar to the people around them, they are more likely to adopt and perceive as correct the observed behavior of these people. This has been noted in areas such as the use of laugh tracks, where participants will laugh longer and harder when they perceive the people laughing to be similar to themselves. [4]

Social proof is also one of Robert Cialdini's six principles of persuasion, (along with reciprocity, commitment/consistency, authority, liking, and scarcity) which maintains that people are especially likely to perform certain actions if they can relate to the people who performed the same actions before them. [5] One experiment which exemplifies this claim was conducted by researchers who joined a door-to-door charity campaign, who found that if a list of prior donators was longer, the next person solicited was more likely to donate as well. This trend was even more pronounced when the names on the donor list were people that the prospective donor knew, such as friends and neighbors. [5] Cialdini's principle also asserts that peer power is effective because people are more likely to respond to influence tactics applied horizontally rather than vertically, so people are more likely to be persuaded by a colleague than a superior. [5]

Research

Early research

The most famous study of social proof is Muzafer Sherif's 1935 experiment. [6] In this experiment subjects were placed in a dark room and asked to look at a dot of light about 15 feet away. They were then asked how much, in inches, the dot of light was moving. In reality it was not moving at all, but due to the autokinetic effect it appeared to move. How much the light appears to move varies from person to person but is generally consistent over time for each individual. A few days later a second part of the experiment was conducted. Each subject was paired with two other subjects and asked to give out loud their estimate of how much the light was moving. Even though the subjects had previously given different estimates, the groups would come to a common estimate. To rule out the possibility that the subjects were simply giving the group answer to avoid looking foolish while still believing their original estimate was correct, Sherif had the subjects judge the lights again by themselves after doing so in the group. They maintained the group's judgment. Because the movement of the light is ambiguous the participants were relying on each other to define reality.

Another study looked at informational social influence in eyewitness identification. Subjects were shown a slide of the "perpetrator". They were then shown a slide of a line-up of four men, one of whom was the perpetrator they had seen, and were asked to pick him out. The task was made difficult to the point of ambiguity by presenting the slides very quickly. The task was done in a group that consisted of one actual subject and three confederates (a person acting as a subject but actually working for the experimenter). The confederates answered first and all three gave the same wrong answer. In a high-importance condition of the experiment subjects were told that they were participating in a real test of eyewitness identification ability that would be used by police departments and courts, and their scores would establish the norm for performance. In a low-importance condition subjects were told that the slide task was still being developed and that the experimenters had no idea what the norm for performance was—they were just looking for useful hints to improve the task. It was found that when subjects thought the task was of high importance they were more likely to conform, giving the confederate's wrong answer 51% of the time as opposed to 35% of the time in the low-importance condition. [7]

Cultural effects on social proof

The strength of social proof also varies across different cultures. For instance, studies have shown that subjects in collectivist cultures conform to others' social proof more often than those in individualist cultures. [8] Although this trend seems reoccurring, there is evidence which suggests that these results are a simplification, and that an independent subject's personal individualistic-collectivist tendency also makes an impact upon their decisions. [9] Additional variables, such as the subject's sense of social responsibility, need to be taken into account to better understand the mechanisms of social proof across cultures; for example, more collectivist individuals will often have an increased compulsion to help others because of their prominent awareness of social responsibility, and this in turn will increase the likelihood they will comply to requests, regardless of their peers' previous decisions. [9]

Copycat suicides

Social proof has been proposed as an explanation for copycat suicide, where suicide rates increase following media publication about suicides. [10] One study using agent-based modeling showed that copycat suicides are more likely when there are similarities between the person involved in the publicized suicide and the potential copycats. [11] In addition, research performed by David Phillips between 1947 and 1968 further supports the existence of copycat suicides. [12]

Examples

In entertainment

Theaters sometimes use specially planted audience members who are instructed to give ovations at pre-arranged times. Usually, these people are the ones who clap initially, and the rest of the audience follows. Such ovations may be perceived by non-expert audience members as signals of the performance's quality.[ citation needed ]

In television shows, television studios have discovered that they can increase the perceived "funniness" of a show by playing a pre-recorded laugh track at key moments. They have found that even though viewers find a laugh track annoying, they perceive shows that use canned laughter to be funnier than those that do not. [10]

In e-commerce

In e-commerce, social proof takes the form of positive testimonials from previous customers. Showcasing these testimonials is one of the tactics that is found to be effective in encouraging potential customers to sign up. [13] [14]

In social media

Social proof is exploited on social networks such as X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. The number of followers, fans, views, likes, favorites and even comments that a user has made, positively affects how other users perceive them. A user on X (formerly Twitter) with a million followers is perceived as more trustworthy and reputable than a similar user with a thousand followers, resulting in faster growth of followers and higher engagement and click-through-rates. [15]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Persuasion</span> Umbrella term of influence and mode of communication

Persuasion or persuasion arts is an umbrella term for influence. Persuasion can influence a person's beliefs, attitudes, intentions, motivations, or behaviours.

Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the relationship between mental states and social situations, studying the social conditions under which thoughts, feelings, and behaviors occur, and how these variables influence social interactions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copycat suicide</span> Emulation of another suicide

A copycat suicide is defined as an emulation of another suicide that the person attempting suicide knows about either from local knowledge or due to accounts or depictions of the original suicide on television and in other media. The publicized suicide serves as a trigger, in the absence of protective factors, for the next suicide by a susceptible or suggestible person. This is referred to as suicide contagion.

Self-perception theory (SPT) is an account of attitude formation developed by psychologist Daryl Bem. It asserts that people develop their attitudes by observing their own behavior and concluding what attitudes must have caused it. The theory is counterintuitive in nature, as the conventional wisdom is that attitudes determine behaviors. Furthermore, the theory suggests that people induce attitudes without accessing internal cognition and mood states. The person interprets their own overt behaviors rationally in the same way they attempt to explain others' behaviors.

Social influence comprises the ways in which individuals adjust their behavior to meet the demands of a social environment. It takes many forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales, and marketing. Typically social influence results from a specific action, command, or request, but people also alter their attitudes and behaviors in response to what they perceive others might do or think. In 1958, Harvard psychologist Herbert Kelman identified three broad varieties of social influence.

  1. Compliance is when people appear to agree with others but actually keep their dissenting opinions private.
  2. Identification is when people are influenced by someone who is liked and respected, such as a famous celebrity.
  3. Internalization is when people accept a belief or behavior and agree both publicly and privately.

Diffusion of responsibility is a sociopsychological phenomenon whereby a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when other bystanders or witnesses are present. Considered a form of attribution, the individual assumes that others either are responsible for taking action or have already done so.

In psychology, the Asch conformity experiments or the Asch paradigm were a series of studies directed by Solomon Asch studying if and how individuals yielded to or defied a majority group and the effect of such influences on beliefs and opinions.

In-group favoritism, sometimes known as in-group–out-group bias, in-group bias, intergroup bias, or in-group preference, is a pattern of favoring members of one's in-group over out-group members. This can be expressed in evaluation of others, in allocation of resources, and in many other ways.

In social psychology, social loafing is the phenomenon of a person exerting less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when working alone. It is seen as one of the main reasons groups are sometimes less productive than the combined performance of their members working as individuals.

Influence: Science and Practice (ISBN 0-321-18895-0) is a psychology book examining the key ways people can be influenced by "Compliance Professionals". The book's author is Robert B. Cialdini, Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University. The key premise of the book is that in a complex world where people are overloaded with more information than they can deal with, people fall back on a decision making approach based on generalizations. These generalizations develop because they allow people to usually act in a correct manner with a limited amount of thought and time. However, they can be exploited and effectively turned into weapons by those who know them to influence others to act certain ways. A seventh lever on "unity" has been added to the most recent edition. To date, the book has sold over two million copies and been published in 25 different languages.

Normality is a behavior that can be normal for an individual when it is consistent with the most common behavior for that person. Normal is also used to describe individual behavior that conforms to the most common behavior in society. However, normal behavior is often only recognized in contrast to abnormality. In many cases normality is used to make moral judgements, such that normality is seen as good while abnormality is seen as bad, or conversely normality can be seen as boring and uninteresting. Someone being seen as normal or not normal can have social ramifications, such as being included, excluded or stigmatized by wider society.

Attitudes are associated beliefs and behaviors towards some object. They are not stable, and because of the communication and behavior of other people, are subject to change by social influences, as well as by the individual's motivation to maintain cognitive consistency when cognitive dissonance occurs—when two attitudes or attitude and behavior conflict. Attitudes and attitude objects are functions of affective and cognitive components. It has been suggested that the inter-structural composition of an associative network can be altered by the activation of a single node. Thus, by activating an affective or emotional node, attitude change may be possible, though affective and cognitive components tend to be intertwined.

Normative social influence is a type of social influence that leads to conformity. It is defined in social psychology as "...the influence of other people that leads us to conform in order to be liked and accepted by them." The power of normative social influence stems from the human identity as a social being, with a need for companionship and association.

Counterproductive norms are group norms that prevent a group, organization, or other collective entities from performing or accomplishing its originally stated function by working oppositely to how they were initially intended. Group norms are typically enforced to facilitate group survival, to make group member behaviour predictable, to help avoid embarrassing interpersonal interactions, or to clarify distinctive aspects of the group’s identity. Counterproductive norms exist despite the fact that they cause opposite outcomes of the intended prosocial functions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belongingness</span> Human emotional need

Belongingness is the human emotional need to be an accepted member of a group. Whether it is family, friends, co-workers, a religion, or something else, some people tend to have an 'inherent' desire to belong and be an important part of something greater than themselves. This implies a relationship that is greater than simple acquaintance or familiarity.

Compliance is a response—specifically, a submission—made in reaction to a request. The request may be explicit or implicit. The target may or may not recognize that they are being urged to act in a particular way.

In social psychology, illusory superiority is a cognitive bias wherein people overestimate their own qualities and abilities compared to others. Illusory superiority is one of many positive illusions, relating to the self, that are evident in the study of intelligence, the effective performance of tasks and tests, and the possession of desirable personal characteristics and personality traits. Overestimation of abilities compared to an objective measure is known as the overconfidence effect.

Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms, politics or being like-minded. Norms are implicit, specific rules, guidance shared by a group of individuals, that guide their interactions with others. People often choose to conform to society rather than to pursue personal desires – because it is often easier to follow the path others have made already, rather than forging a new one. Thus, conformity is sometimes a product of group communication. This tendency to conform occurs in small groups and/or in society as a whole and may result from subtle unconscious influences, or from direct and overt social pressure. Conformity can occur in the presence of others, or when an individual is alone. For example, people tend to follow social norms when eating or when watching television, even if alone.

Scarcity, in the area of social psychology, works much like scarcity in the area of economics. Scarcity is basically how people handle satisfying themselves regarding unlimited wants and needs with resources that are limited. Humans place a higher value on an object that is scarce, and a lower value on those that are in abundance. For example diamonds are more valuable than rocks because diamonds are not as abundant. These perceptions of scarcity can lead to irregular consumer behavior, such as systemic errors or cognitive bias.

An argument from authority, also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam, is a form of argument in which the opinion of an influential figure is used as evidence to support an argument.

References

  1. ↑ Aronson, E., Wilson, T.D., & Akert, A.M. (2005). Social Psychology (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.[ ISBN missing ][ page needed ]
  2. ↑ Kelman, H. C. (1 March 1958). "Compliance, identification, and internalization three processes of attitude change". Journal of Conflict Resolution. 2 (1): 51–60. doi:10.1177/002200275800200106. S2CID   145642577.
  3. ↑ Wooten, D; Reed II, A (1 January 1998). "Informational Influence and the Ambiguity of Product Experience: Order Effects on the Weighting of Evidence". Journal of Consumer Psychology. 7 (1): 79–99. doi:10.1207/s15327663jcp0701_04.
  4. ↑ Platow, Michael J.; Haslam, S. Alexander; Both, Amanda; Chew, Ivanne; Cuddon, Michelle; Goharpey, Nahal; Maurer, Jacqui; Rosini, Simone; Tsekouras, Anna; Grace, Diana M. (1 September 2005). "'It's not funny if they're laughing': Self-categorization, social influence, and responses to canned laughter". Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 41 (5): 542–550. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2004.09.005. hdl: 1885/36011 .
  5. 1 2 3 Cialdini, Robert B. (October 2001). "Harnessing the science of persuasion". Harvard Business Review. 79 (9): 72–79.
  6. ↑ Sherif, M (1935). "A study of some social factors in perception". Archives of Psychology. 27: 187.
  7. ↑ Baron, Robert S.; Vandello, Joseph A.; Brunsman, Bethany (1 January 1996). "The forgotten variable in conformity research: Impact of task importance on social influence". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 71 (5): 915–927. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.71.5.915.
  8. ↑ Bond, Rod; Peter B. Smith (1996). "Culture and Conformity: A Meta-analysis of Studies Using Asch's (1952, 1956) Line Judgment Task". Psychological Bulletin. 119: 111–137. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.119.1.111.
  9. 1 2 Cialdini, Robert B.; Wosinska, W.; Barett, D. W.; Gornik-Durose, M. (October 1999). "Compliance with a request in two cultures: The differential influence of social proof and commitment/consistency on collectivists and individualists". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 25 (10): 1242–1253. doi:10.1177/0146167299258006. S2CID   143225569.
  10. 1 2 Cialdini, Robert B. (2009) [2001]. "4 –Social Proof: Truths are Us". Influence: Science and Practice (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. pp. 97–140. ISBN   978-0205609994.
  11. ↑ Mesoudi, Alex; Jones, James Holland (2009). Jones, James Holland (ed.). "The Cultural Dynamics of Copycat Suicide". PLOS ONE. 4 (9): e7252. Bibcode:2009PLoSO...4.7252M. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007252 . PMC   2748702 . PMID   19789643.
  12. ↑ Hoffmann-Richter, Ulrike; Schenker, Tanja; Finzen, Asmus; Dittmann, Volker; Kraeuchi, Kurt; Hoffmann-Richter, Ulrike (Summer 2003). "The Werther Effect and Assisted Suicide". Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. 33 (2): 192–200. doi:10.1521/suli.33.2.192.22768. PMID   12882420.
  13. ↑ Roethke, Konstantin; Klumpe, Johannes; Adam, Martin; Benlian, Alexander (2020-04-01). "Social influence tactics in e-commerce onboarding: The role of social proof and reciprocity in affecting user registrations". Decision Support Systems. 131: 113268. doi:10.1016/j.dss.2020.113268. ISSN   0167-9236.
  14. ↑ Xu, Lina; Roy, Abhijit; Niculescu, Mihai (2022-03-16). "A Dual Process Model of the Influence of Recommender Systems on Purchase Intentions in Online Shopping Environments". Journal of Internet Commerce: 1–22. doi:10.1080/15332861.2022.2049113. ISSN   1533-2861.
  15. ↑ "Using Social Proof for your Digital Success ϟ Devumi" . Retrieved 2015-10-01.
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