Summary: Additional Literature in the course Social Influence
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Module
Social influence (PSB3ESP07)
Institution
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RuG)
I have summarized the additional articles and book chapters for the course Social Influence (2022/2023). I have copied the most important information from the articles, so it's all in English. It is a nice addition to my summary of the course book, which can also be found on Stuvia.
Additional literature summaries Social Influence 2022-2023
SUMMARY OF THE ADDITIONAL
LITERATURE
COURSE: SOCIAL INFLUENCE (2022-2023)
Table of Content
Article for the whole course......................................................................................................................................1
Cialdini & Goldstein - Social Influence: Compliance and Conformity...................................................................2
Week 1.....................................................................................................................................................................10
Chapter 4 – Fluency and Social Influence (Petrova, Schwarz, & Song)...............................................................11
Week 3.....................................................................................................................................................................14
Chapter 7 - Social Norms (Goldstein & Mortensen)...........................................................................................14
Mazar & Ariely (2006) - Dishonesty in Everyday Life and Its Policy Implications...............................................17
Week 4.....................................................................................................................................................................21
Burger (1999) - The Foot-in-the-Door Compliance Procedure...........................................................................21
Week 5.....................................................................................................................................................................27
Chapter 11 - Egoism or Altruism? (Brown & Maner)..........................................................................................27
Week 6.....................................................................................................................................................................30
Reader: Using Emotions......................................................................................................................................31
ARTICLE FOR THE WHOLE COURSE
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,Additional literature summaries Social Influence 2022-2023
CIALDINI & GOLDSTEIN - SOCIAL INFLUENCE: COMPLIANCE AND CONFORMITY
As an organizational framework, this chapter focuses on the extent to which three central motivations—to be
accurate, to affiliate, and to maintain a positive self-concept—drive targets’ cognitions and behaviors in the
areas of compliance and conformity.
Compliance:
Compliance refers to a particular kind of response—acquiescence—to a particular kind of communication—a
request. The request may be explicit, as in the direct solicitation of funds in a door-to-door campaign for
charitable donations, or it may be implicit, as in a political advertisement that touts the qualities of a candidate
without directly asking for a vote. But in all cases, the target recognizes that he or she is being urged to respond
in a desired way.
(1) Goal of accuracy
Stated simply, people are motivated to achieve their goals in the most effective and rewarding manner
possible. A person’s desire to respond appropriately to a dynamic social situation demands an accurate
perception of reality. The need to correctly interpret and react to incoming information is of paramount
importance, particularly to targets of compliance-gaining attempts. One inaccurate perception, cognition, or
behavior could mean the difference between getting a bargain and being duped. A great deal of recent
compliance research has investigated how targets of various influence techniques process information and
respond to requests as they attempt to gain an accurate construal of the situation and respond accordingly.
- Affect and arousal:
After receiving a request, targets use their feelings as cues for effective responding. For example,
Whatley et al. (1999) posited that individuals avoid or alleviate feelings of shame and fear via public
compliance, and guilt and pity via private compliance. Other investigators have found that the simple
arousal elicited by performing an interesting task enhances the likelihood of compliance with a
request.
Searching for a broader perspective on the role of affect in compliance scenarios, Forgas (1998a)
argued that the conditions under which affect mediates the processing of and responses to requests
can be explained by the affect infusion model (AIM). The AIM contends that a target’s mood will
permeate the processing of a request to the extent that the processing is effortful and exhaustive.
Forgas (1998a) suggested that the processing of a request will be more sensitive to mood if the appeal
is unconventional (requiring more substantive processing), and rather impervious to mood if it is
conventional.
The AIM, like many other theories of affect and cognition, focuses on processes that occur while an
individual is experiencing a transient emotion or set of emotions. Dolinski & Nawrat (1998) established
the success of a technique designed to increase compliance immediately after a particularly arousing
mood has subsided: the fear-then-relief procedure.
- That’s-not-all technique:
One strategy commonly employed by sales professionals that takes advantage of people’s limited
abilities to make well-reasoned judgments is the that’s-not-all technique (TNA). Influence agents
utilize this technique by presenting a target with an initial request, followed by an almost immediate
sweetening of the deal—either by reducing the cost or by increasing the benefits of compliance—
before the message recipient has an opportunity to respond. Although obligations to reciprocate the
solicitor’s generosity have been shown to be at least partially responsible for the effect in some
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,Additional literature summaries Social Influence 2022-2023
situations, Burger advanced a second, broader explanation for the phenomenon based on the contrast
between the two requests and shifting anchor points.
It has been demonstrated that the procedure could backfire when the original request is too costly or
demanding. These and earlier findings are congruent with the theory that the initial request modifies
the anchor point individuals use when deciding how to respond to the more attractive request. Thus,
by first elevating a prospective customer’s anchor point, the salesperson increases the likelihood that
the better deal will fall into a range of acceptance that is based on this higher anchor point.
Pollock et al. (1998) suggested an alternative account for the original TNA findings. They contended
that TNA procedures succeed because potential customers mindlessly act on counterfactuals that
create the appearance of a bargain. These authors reported results consistent with the position that
the success of the TNA tactic is at least partially due to individuals’ mindless consideration of the deal.
However, their research did not provide a direct test of their account against the modified anchor
point explanation.
- Resistance:
Some researchers have placed the that’s-not-all tactic among a class of influence strategies referred to
as disrupt-then-reframe techniques (DTR). The DTR technique operates by disrupting an individual’s
understanding of and resistance to an influence attempt and reframing the persuasive message or
request so that the individual is left more vulnerable to the proposition.
The disrupt-then-reframe tactic enhances the likelihood of compliance by suppressing the target’s
resistance processes rather than by directly bolstering the desirability of request fulfillment. Knowles
& Linn (2003) argue that forces drawing targets away from compliance (omega forces) in any given
circumstance may be of a qualitatively different nature than those driving them toward compliance
(alpha forces).
- Authority and obedience:
Individuals are frequently rewarded for behaving in accordance with the opinions, advice, and
directives of authority figures. Authorities may achieve their influence via several distinct routes. The
distinction between authority based on one’s expertise and authority derived from one’s relative
position in a hierarchy has remained relevant in differentiating mere compliance from what is
commonly referred to as obedience.
Researchers have categorized strategies employing expert power in a class called soft tactics and
approaches utilizing hierarchy-based legitimate power in a class known as harsh tactics. More
generally, soft influences originate from factors within the influence agent (e.g., credibility), whereas
the power of harsh influences is derived externally by means of an existing social structure.
Most organizations would cease to operate efficiently if deference to authority were not one of the
prevailing norms. Yet, the norm is so well entrenched in organizational cultures that orders are
regularly carried out by subordinates with little regard for potential deleterious ethical consequences
of such acts.
The Milgram studies revealed the potentially harmful consequences of an illegitimate authority posing
as a legitimate authority. Similarly, previous research has shown that we are also susceptible to those
feigning expertise, largely due to our use of heuristics and our perceptions of invulnerability to such
duplicitous manipulations.
- Social norms:
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, Additional literature summaries Social Influence 2022-2023
In addition to authorities, individuals often look to social norms to gain an accurate understanding of
and effectively respond to social situations, especially during times of uncertainty. Cialdini and
colleagues have argued that a close examination of the seemingly inconsistent literature on norms and
their impact on behavior yields a meaningful distinction between norms that inform us about what is
typically approved/disapproved (injunctive norms) and those that inform us about what is typically
done (descriptive norms). The impact of these social norms on both subtle behavior-shaping and more
overt compliance-gaining will be determined by the extent to which each of the norms is focal and the
degree to which the different types of norms are in alignment.
Investigators have corroborated the findings of earlier research that relevant norms direct behavior
only when they are in focus. This is true not only for norms outside of the self, but for personal norms
as well. Research findings suggest that one’s actions are relatively unaffected by normative
information—even one’s own—unless the information is highlighted prominently in consciousness.
(2) Goal of affiliation
Humans are fundamentally motivated to create and maintain meaningful social relationships with others. For
example, implicit in the concept of injunctive norms is the idea that if we engage in behaviors of which others
approve, others will approve of us, too. Accordingly, we use approval and liking cues to help build, maintain,
and measure the intimacy of our relationships with others. We also move closer to achieving these affiliation-
oriented goals when we abide by norms of social exchange with others, such as the norm of reciprocity.
- Liking:
One of the clearest implications of our desire to affiliate with others is that the more we like and
approve of them, the more likely we are to take actions to cultivate close relationships with them. This
may be accomplished via a number of means, including responding affirmatively to requests for help.
Physical attractiveness, a predictor of interpersonal liking, has been demonstrated to influence
responding in a number of domains, ranging from tip earnings to the likelihood of being asked for
identification in bars.
Because we so often rely on the heuristic rule that the more we like someone with whom we have an
existing relationship, the greater should be our willingness to comply with the request, we tend to use
the rule automatically and unwittingly when the request comes from strangers, as well. This is even
more likely the case under the burdens of a heavy cognitive load, such as when the request is made
face-to-face and is unexpected. In addition, greater perceived similarity—another cue for potential
friend- or acquaintanceship—has been demonstrated to lead to enhanced compliance, even when the
apparent similarities are based on superficial matches such as shared names, birthdays, and even
fingerprint types. However, some caution is warranted in generalizing these results to both genders,
however, because nearly all of the participants were female.
Dolinski et al. (2001) also argued that certain situational cues activate heuristics that lead us to treat
strangers as if they were friends or acquaintances. The authors contend that scripts for dealing with
strangers or with friends and acquaintances are activated by the particular mode of communication in
which we are engaged. Specifically, we tend to associate monologues with strangers and dialogues
with closer relationships. In a series of studies, Dolinski and his colleagues showed that simply
engaging people in a short, trivial dialogue prior to making the target request was sufficient to elevate
compliance relative to a monologue condition.
Impression management through ingratiation is another means by which individuals utilize the liking
principle for maximal influence. Investigators have found that targets of ingratiation tend to view the
ingratiator more positively than do onlookers. The traditional explanation for the target-observer
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