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Lecture notes social influence
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Aantekeningen van de 7 hoorcolleges van social influence - notes from the 7 lectures of the course of the minor psychology in society.
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Lecture notes persuasive communication
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Persuasive communication samenvatting (Gass & Seiter 6th edition)
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Summary Persuasion; Social Influence and Compliance Gaining
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Social influenceLecture 1 - Introduction
Besides the book there are also video’s, photos and small articles = also exam material.
Example questions on discussion board.
There is no clear distinct between social influence and persuasion.
- Social influence: affecting one’s emotions, opinions/behaviors
- Persuasion: specific intent/intention
- Compliance gaining: request
o Borderline vs pure persuasion:
Mostly persuasion is non-coercive
E.g. Intentional vs unintentional; you do it deliberately or not
Symbolic is about that language needs to be involved;
non-verbal components like smiling
Persuading yourself is more borderline persuasion.
Automatic processes:
● How much control do we have over the information-processing
steps
● Are we aware of the actual causes of our thoughts, feelings and behaviours?
● Psychological processes lacking control and awareness are said to be automatic
Gain some knowledge about the human machine; make use of it to influence people.
Understand how decisions are made. You mostly rely on automatic processes.
Automatic vs controlled processes - two types of processes:
1. Controlled: awareness, intended, controllable, effortful
I. The control function had to interfere when you saw the letters BLUE in a red color
Behaviour is influenced by actual cause and perceived cause of behaviour
2. Automatic: lack of awareness, unintended, uncontrollable, efficient. It just happens.
I. E.g. what color is this?
⇒ Heuristics
● Strategies using readily accessible, though loosely applicable, information to decide
● Rule of thumb, educated guesses, intuitive judgments and common sense = making quick
decision throughout the day
● In part unconscious, automated choices tapping into automatic processes.
● Fixed-action pattern: behaviours that occur in virtually the same fashion and order every
time - you see something and then react in an automatic way.
Why do we use heuristics: cognitive limitations, limited time/energy, can’t deliberate on every
choice we make, efficient, heuristics work very well most of the time, heuristics are rational,
however in some instances they have unwanted outcomes.
,If you know how heuristics work it helps you to influence people. Examples of heuristics:
● People like to hear reasons for things; a reason why
● People are more likely to do a favor for us when we provide them a reason to
● Study Langer and colleagues: asking a favor of people waiting in line to use a copy
machine: experiment with two reasons about why you want to go first with printing. Result is
that when people have a reason to go first then you can go first. There is no difference
between the reason … because I’m in a rush or I want to make some copies. So the
heuristic is about the word because vs. no reason. When people ask a bigger effort (twenty
pages instead of five) then the other focuses less on the word ‘because’ and looks more at
the quality of the argument - because I’m in a rush gives better outcome.
Expensive = good
● Expensive beers taste better than inexpensive ones (if quality and style are similar)
● This is true even when prices and brands are switched. The price has an extensive impact
● People think that when something is cheap then the quality is low, so inexpensive = bad.
● Slogan L’oréal: because you’re worth it it claims that when you buy a cheap product you
see yourself as less worth it. You are worth it so you may buy the expensive product.
● Complementary products are valued less and perceived/rated to be inexpensive. Example:
evaluate value of bracelet as such vs as a free present. People are willing to pay 35% less
when they think it is a present - if you offer free products, indicate the price.
Discount
● Discount coupons result in higher sales, even when no savings are offered. Expensive =
good and saving costs.
● You mention the original price and then you give the sale price. When you only mention the
sale price then people are less willing to buy it.
Effort heuristic
● Time and effort in producing are also an indicator of value.
● Example: you find 80 euro what would you spend it on?
And then scenario 2: you earned 80 euros due to work
- When you find it you spend it on unnecessary things
- When you work for it you know the true value and spend it on more necessary things.
● Playing hard to get is a strategy - you use effort to get in contact with the person, it gives a
sign about the value of the other person.
Effort and arguments
● Rhyme (slogan, song etc. has more positive effects, believed to be more true. The more
effort put in arguments, the more quality the arguments have.
● Easy to process, so more likely to be true = indicator that it is a good argument. Easier to
think of positive aspects of a product, the more positively that product is evaluated. It gives
information about how much you like a specific product.
● Sloppy handwriting is less persuasive, complex writing is also less persuasive
Recognition heuristic
,You often chose the answer you recognize, when you don’t know the other option. You chose
San Francisco because you recognize it, while San Jose is bigger. So if one of the two objects
is recognized and the other is not, we think that the recognized object has the higher value with
respect to the criterion. In many cases this is a valid assumption.
Similarity heuristic
You use similarities to determine whether it is a good product or not.People make judgments
based on similarities between current situations and (prototypes of) other situations. Adaptive:
maximizing productivity through favorable experience while not repeating unfavorable
experiences. Favorable vs unfavorable experiences. You chose a product that has the same
pleasant similarities as the old pleasant product you have. Like buy books with characteristics to
previously pleasurable books.
Simulation heuristic
The likelihood of an event is based on how easy it is to picture mentally - risk perception.
It is very easy to picture mentally that a plane crashes, while it is more likely that fall due a
banana slip on the street. Playing with visualization. People more regret missing outcomes that
are easier to imagine, near misses like seeing the train leave.
Contrast principle
If a second item is fairly different from the first, we perceive it as more different. You use
reference points in determining buying specific products. People are very good in comparing
products, the relation between two products. Sell costly items first, this will make the other item
look less expensive (other way around is not effective. Real estate companies mostly use the
contrast principle - they always start with a crappy house and then the company shows the okay
house. This house looks great in comparison to the crappy house, so people are willing to buy
it. Cars can get additional options that make them even greater. Giving alternatives
like 3.2% interest in 5 years or 3.4 interest in 10 years.
Reference point
Choose between two options. By putting option C in the diagram, option A looks
better than option B. Despite the fact you don’t know what the dimensions are.
Compromise
When choosing between products, we tend to take the inexpensive option. When
adding a third, more expensive option, people mostly choose the middle one,
because you don’t want to choose the cheapest option = compromise. Buying wine in a
restaurant - sales of expensive options can be increased by adding even more expensive
options.
Persuasive messages
When do we rely on heuristics? Dual process of persuasions: you have two modes when
processing information > Controlled and automatic processes:
● Elaboration Likelihood model:
, People motivated hold correct
attitudes
Elaboration: thoughts
about/elaboration on issues
relevant to arguments
presented.
More likely when we are
motivated and able to process
information
Central route: thinking more
deeply Peripheral route: rely more on heuristic
● Heuristic systematic models
ELM:
It is a continuum
High involvement and high ability: central route - consider new information thoroughly and
compare with available information
Low involvement and low ability: peripheral route - low cognitive effort and heuristics.
Motivation and ability:
Motivation depends on: involvement (importance), responsibility, personal relevance and
need for cognition
Ability depends on: distraction, knowledge, repetition, emotional arousal, mental fatigue,
time and complexity
● Kahneman’s two systems
Thinking fast and slow = book.
System 1: intuition = fast, parallel, automatic, effortless, associative, slow-learning and
emotional
System 2: reasoning = slow, serial, controlled, effortful, rule-governed, flexible and neutral
Social influence: definitions, dual processes and various heuristics
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