Social influence (PSMIN07/PSB3E-SP07)
Theories/principles/tactics
• The ‘because’ principle → when we ask someone to do us a favour we will be more
successful if we provide a reason.
• Customer principle → expensive = good
• The contrast principle → affects the way we see the difference between two things that
are presented one after another. If the second item is fairly different from the first, we
will tend to see it as more different than it actually is.
o Reference point
• Principle of social proof → we often decide to do what other people like us are doing/we
determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct
o By describing the undesirable behaviour as common, such messages can actually
increase its frequency, rather than reduce it.
o Asking recipients to imagine potential negative outcomes is also ineffective,
because the negative outcomes are often abstract that can make these outcomes
seem less likely to occur.
• Fluency-familiarity-truth phenomenon → Research demonstrates that variables that
facilitate fluent processing (repetition, contrasting background, rhyme) create the
impression that a statement is true.
• Tactic imagination → asking people about the likelihood that they will engage in a
behaviour can make them actually engage in the behaviour (if it is easy to imagine doing
it)
• The mere exposure effect → the more we see an object, the more we like it.
• Similarity heuristic → when making judgments we often compare the current situation
to a previous experience that we have and prototypes of these experiences.
• Recognition heuristic → something that we recognize is often higher on that value and
the correct answer.
• Simulation heuristic → the ease with which we can imagine something is often used as a
heuristic to determine its probability.
• Focus theory of normative conduct → there are two different types of norms (descriptive
and injunctive), which can have considerably different effects on behaviour.
o Solution: simply communicating that the behaviour is strongly disapproved,
without providing any data on what the majority of people are doing, can have a
positive effect on reducing these behaviours
• Theory of optimal punishment → in order to decrease deception
• Broken window theory → cues of broken windows will lead to a spiral of criminal
behaviour in that neighbourhood
• Goal framing theory → We basically have various glasses through which we look at the
world (and the information overload that is presented), these glasses on the one hand
focus us on specific things that are very important to us at that moment, and on the other
hand they filter out stuff that isn’t. These glasses/frames are our goals and make that we
Theories/principles/tactics
• The ‘because’ principle → when we ask someone to do us a favour we will be more
successful if we provide a reason.
• Customer principle → expensive = good
• The contrast principle → affects the way we see the difference between two things that
are presented one after another. If the second item is fairly different from the first, we
will tend to see it as more different than it actually is.
o Reference point
• Principle of social proof → we often decide to do what other people like us are doing/we
determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct
o By describing the undesirable behaviour as common, such messages can actually
increase its frequency, rather than reduce it.
o Asking recipients to imagine potential negative outcomes is also ineffective,
because the negative outcomes are often abstract that can make these outcomes
seem less likely to occur.
• Fluency-familiarity-truth phenomenon → Research demonstrates that variables that
facilitate fluent processing (repetition, contrasting background, rhyme) create the
impression that a statement is true.
• Tactic imagination → asking people about the likelihood that they will engage in a
behaviour can make them actually engage in the behaviour (if it is easy to imagine doing
it)
• The mere exposure effect → the more we see an object, the more we like it.
• Similarity heuristic → when making judgments we often compare the current situation
to a previous experience that we have and prototypes of these experiences.
• Recognition heuristic → something that we recognize is often higher on that value and
the correct answer.
• Simulation heuristic → the ease with which we can imagine something is often used as a
heuristic to determine its probability.
• Focus theory of normative conduct → there are two different types of norms (descriptive
and injunctive), which can have considerably different effects on behaviour.
o Solution: simply communicating that the behaviour is strongly disapproved,
without providing any data on what the majority of people are doing, can have a
positive effect on reducing these behaviours
• Theory of optimal punishment → in order to decrease deception
• Broken window theory → cues of broken windows will lead to a spiral of criminal
behaviour in that neighbourhood
• Goal framing theory → We basically have various glasses through which we look at the
world (and the information overload that is presented), these glasses on the one hand
focus us on specific things that are very important to us at that moment, and on the other
hand they filter out stuff that isn’t. These glasses/frames are our goals and make that we
