Modalities of Social Influence

1. Modalities of Social Influence Martin W Bauer Institute of Social Psychology (ISP) MBauer LSE

2. The Argument of today • 1 Different Modalities of Social Influence • 2 The Problem of Rationality and Sub-Rationality • Some Reconstruction and Integration Work • Moral of the story: the moral dubiousness of influence • An old concern: raising awareness of social influence to protect us against it (harnessing the enlightenment effect) • Social Psychology = the study of what persuades at present ! MBauer LSE

3. Social Influence and Social Interaction The battle for the hearts and minds of others How do others influence me or us? How do I or we influence them? The many influence the one/few: majority, crowds The many influence the many: imitation, pressure One/few influence the many: minority, persuasion, prestige One influences one another: contagion, persuasion, prestige To influence yourself: to argue, to reason MBauer LSE

4. Other takes on ‘influence’ Military force: moving in tanks, fortification to keep enemies out Politics hard power: armies, police and threat of violence soft power: cultural influence; attractive ‘way of life’; good music Sociology a) generalised communication media (GCMs) e.g. money: a code that substitutes for ambiguous language and thus increases the probability of communication between A and B; similarly prestige, power, law (see Parsons, Luhmann etc) b) Trust: general condition that reduces transaction costs; a kind of credit that absorbs losses, disappointments Social Psychology: we will now see ? MBauer LSE

5. Eristics, Sophistry Rhetoric Public sphere Prestige hierarchy community Mass behaviour crowds, contagion, persuasion normalising, compliance, obedience, conversion Representations Norms, attitudes, opinions, beliefs Behaviour & actions MBauer LSE

6. MBauer LSE

7. Crowds and Leadership of Masses • Gustave Le Bon (1895) ‘The Age of the Crowd’ • In social company individuals are lulled into a state of hypnosis • The power of suggestion: accepting propositions without testing reason • ‘mass’ = metaphor: matter (hyle) that needs to be given form (soul) • Crowds bring about a hypnotic state in individuals = crowd effect • de-individuation in crowds: lowering the threshold of restraint; •  ’effemination’: otherwise rational individuals turn into irrational animals; animal spirits (irrational = women is a 19th century stereotype) • Personality alteration towards impulsiveness, exaggeration, intolerance, simplistic reasoning etc (everything that is despicable happens in crowds) • individuals in mass can be ‘formed like clay’, there is no control left; • a need and opportunity for leaders (crowds = material in need of form) 1841-1931 MBauer LSE

8. Critique: middle class panic over street politics (the shock of ‘Paris Commune’ of 1871); ‘fin de siecle’ pessimism on human nature; social factors pitted against rational judgement; assumes that imitation works without reasoning and judgements, the latter at most a special case; a theory of political populism; huge success as popular science; Taiwan edition 2011. Neo-stoic, modern ethos of a ‘rational individual’ (Taylor, 2007) buffered against outside: others, demons, spirits, contact buffered against inside: desire, passion An elitist last stand against uncontrollable masses MBauer LSE

9. t The Pendulum of Managerial Control (cycles of 35-50 years; see Barley & Kunda, 1992) ‘(Job) design’ ‘Devotion’ Reward Context Task design Content Leadership; ‘Charisma’ Extrinsic motivation Intrinsic motivation Identification; Loyalty MBauer LSE

10. Contagion and Imitation Gabriel Tarde (2001) [1890] ‘The Laws of Imitation’ two sources of similarity and difference of people: by inheritance and by imitation imitation has two phases: invention and imitation (= sharing intentionality): no laws for invention, but many laws of imitation; lists of principles, for example: 1 imitation proceeds from the inner to the outer man: dress fashion [outer] is anticipated by literary fashions [inner];ideas [inner] precede behavioural expression [outer]; ends [inner] change before the means [outer]; 2 Imitation follows the social hierarchy of prestige: The aristocrats are the cultural trend setters; see Stars, opinion leaders; List A people in advertising 3Liquid intake is more easily imitated than food intake: Explains why alcoholism is more prevalent than obesity (probably a 19th century observation) ? Gabriel Trade (2006) [1901] ‘Opinion and crowds’ Difference between crowd and public opinion: co-presence in street versus mediated co-attention Public opinion = floating conversations, a homogenity of outlook, not only political, also religious Public opinion is selective: focusing attention on X, thus not to Y (Affaire Dreyfus > 1895); Historical novelty: the press substitutes crowds in their function: exerting political pressure to act (1843-1904) MBauer LSE

11. The diffusion model (e.g. Rogers et al., 1983) Resistant laggards Adopters late innovators early 100% Adoption rate 50% density t1 t2 t3 t accelerated decelerated Slow again slow Key criterion = ‘years to 50%’ 23/09/2014 MBauer LSE 11

12. ‘The battle for the hearts and minds’ • Linear model: invention (idea) - innovation (product) - diffusion (marketing) • problem attribution: ‘black box’ the product and work on the social system • sigmoid diffusion: logistic adoption rate = ln(p/N-p) = a + bt • profiling of population: e.g. early adopters, late adopters, laggards • multivariate analysis of attitude data: clustering, typologies, regression • media practices: how to reach the different groups [media mix] • Guiding a strategic intervention: ‘battle for the hearts and minds of people’ • mass communication for awareness • Advertising campaigns; marketing; two-step flows • inter-personal communication for adoption decisions MBauer LSE

13. Echoes in ‘viral theories’ of ideas, beliefs • Authors like: Dawkins (1976), Sperber (1990) Atran (2002), Boyer (2001) • Ideas modelled in analogy to virus and viral infection, epidemiology of belief • To entertain a new idea X = being infected by X • Virulence of an idea (stickiness) • Host susceptibility ‘tipping point’ • Ecological milieu (e.g. herd immunity) • How far does the ‘viral’ analogy go? (asks Kitcher, 2003) • Remember Dr Pasteur: ‘the germ is nothing, the milieu is everything’ • Hygiene as intervention: vigilance, contact avoidance, moral cleansing • Transmission of object relations y: y(Ac) => y(Bc) • Intentional entities: ideas are ‘entities that refer to something else’ • Is ‘y’ before and after transmission from A to B identical object relation ? • Unspecified epidemiological analogues: mutation, rate of recovery, immunity, competition, rate of re-infection after recovery, gestation time etc. MBauer LSE

14. Rational or irrational; that is the question MBauer LSE

15. Influence as (ir)rational a) The doctrine of suggestion (a 19th century fad?) Tarde, LeBon et al. Somnambulism as normal, everyday state of affairs Rationality is exceptional, for an elite of cultivated individuals ‘Oligo poloi’ (few) against the ‘hoi poloi’ (many) The sovereign mind buffered inside and outside (Taylor) b) Rationality as universal human potential Experimental demonstrations of ‘rationality’ (new social psych) The search for exceptional circumstances where it fails Triarchical rationality in relation to ego, social and world Either/Or dual-system ideas versus uni-modal system MBauer LSE

16. Dualities of social influence (the lure of dichotomies) Genetic determination or cultural imitation Rational versus irrational/subrational Reason versus passion Hard and soft Conscious versus non-conscious, automatic Central versus peripheral elaboration likelihood Expectancy-value versus emotional conditioning heuristic-systematic system 1 and system 2 Hot and cold Fast and slow Intuitive versus deliberative Majority versus minorityinfluence MBauer LSE

17. Dual-System Ideas Elaboration (system 2) Higher brain, slow, cold ? behaviour Cue based, biased (system 1) Lower brain, fast, hot Dichotomy of systems or variable parameters ? Tools from same box, combined differently MBauer LSE

18. Mustafer Sherif (1906-1988) Stanley Milgram (1933-1984) Solomon Asch (1907-1996) Serge Moscovici (*1925) MBauer LSE

19. Normalisation and Frame of Reference > 1935 • Mustafar Sherif (1935) et al.: • Emerging norm of judgements; once established, they persist • ‘Auto-kinetic phenomenon’ experiments: • an ambiguous stimulus flickering in the dark chamber • Compromising and convergence of judgements in groups • Establish an individual norm in repeated observations • Bringing individual norms into groups to agree ‘group judgments’ • An agreed frame of reference persists, even in individual perceptions • The social process as productive process: a basis for co-ordinated action • Critique: innocuous situation; an experiments with no real-life stakes MBauer LSE

20. MBauer LSE

21. Ludvik Fleck (1939 / 79) the ‘origin of scientific facts’ • [demonstrated on the emergence of the modern theory of syphilis] • Scientific facts are stabilised in the interplay of • Thinking collective • Thinking style • Genres of communication: lab, journal, popular (concentric) • The need of public appreciation (popularisation) • certainty, simplicity, concreteness • Facts are ‘the world seen as’ (in function of a frame of reference) • for simplicity we say ‘x is a’, rather than ‘x is seen as a’ or x(a/F) • A spade is a ‘spade’, only when seen ‘as a tool’, otherwise is just wood + metal MBauer LSE

22. Majorityinfluence > 1950s Experiments on conformity and compliance Unambiguous stimulus situation: three geometrical lines Solomon Asch et al. ( > 1951): majority influence and conformity Experiment on visual stimuli; majority is briefed for false judgements How is conformity induced; what supports resistance? Normative-motivational influence = avoidance of sanction, need for affiliation = exclusion anxiety = ‘it hurts to be alone’ (litteraly) Rational basis: in relation to others, preserving a positive self-concept Recent: wisdom of the crowd, majority as signal and information MBauer LSE

23. The odd one out MBauer LSE

24. The distress of social exclusion (ostracism) • hurts like physical pain (Panksepp, 2003; Eisenberger et.al, 2004) • Increased immune activity (Dickerson et al., 2009) • increased hormone level: progesterone (Maner et al., 2010) • It hurts, even if exclusion pays off (vanBeest et al., 2006) • Slowing of heart rate (Moor et al, 2010) • Higher cortisol levels in saliva (Blackhart et al., 2007) • being ‘left in the cold’, feels cold (Zhong & Leonardelli, 2008) • Craving for warm food (Zhong & Leonardelli, 2008) • Make us more sensitive to cues that signal deception (Bernstein et al., 2008) • So what: we learn from this that we are social animals (individuals 2nd) • Pain killers like Acetaminophen help when excluded (DeWall et al., 2010) MBauer LSE

25. Obedience to Authority Stanley Milgram et al ( > 1963) : Pretext experiment: ‘Learning by pain’ [disguised purposes: how far do we go?] People are naturally hesitant, but this is turned-off by authority The ‘actant state’ = actant abdicates responsibility; ‘I am only a part of the machine’ = the banality of evil (Hannah Arendt) Compliance rates as cultural indictor: a national ‘litmus test’ [a model for genocide studies] A model case of AbuGraib, holocaust? but note the pictures !!! MBauer LSE

26. MBauer LSE

27. Obedience rates as cultural indicator ? % of participants who continued to max 450 Volts with electro shocks Mean (US) = 61% Mean (elsewhere) = 66% Bio-Ethical ban on replications (>1975) issues: consent and harm to subjects Source: Blass (2004, p302f); Burger (2009): only ratio of participants intending to continue beyond 150 Vs MBauer LSE

28. MBauer LSE

29. Alone or with partner After-Image stimulus • Short presentations • Recall of colours • Recognition of colours later: priming and latency MBauer LSE

30. MBauer LSE

31. MBauer LSE

32. MBauer LSE

33. Minority influence > 1967 [Moscovici et al.] Experiments on influence of minority and conversion Reversal of Asch’s paradigm: the deviant minority is briefed to stay firm Back to ambiguous stimulus as used by Sherif: colour after-images Behavioural grammar: rigidity, consistency, autonomy/independence Symbolic-informational change: majority reassesses its own assumptions / beliefs [not avoiding stress nor satisfying a need, but world-oriented rationality] Sleeper effect: private change precedes public change (Tarde); source of information is forgotten: the tragedy of succesful minorities Nomic and anomic minorities: organised versus disorganised deviance; influence is only possible for nomic-organised minority Paradox of minority influence: behavioural grammar requires conformity within the minority [an organised-nomic minority: see Leninism, terror cells] MBauer LSE

34. MBauer LSE

35. So far - what the textbooks tell you Now let us do some thinking …… MBauer LSE

36. Integration work Bringing things together MBauer LSE

37. Social interations create structures of ‘common sense’ (CS) CS = social representations such as attitudes, beliefs, ideas, notions Collective intentionality: common outlook and collective action The problem: establishing, maintaining, and re-designing CS in the context of intra- and inter-group conflicts (between groups A, B, C) Multiple common senses not one ‘sensus communis’ Conflict resolution over communalities: processes of structuration by violence and force: by military warfare [hard power] by adjudication of institutional authorities [court, church, science] by social influence in imperfect public sphere [soft power] by deliberation in ‘functioning civil society’ [power-free discourse] ‘Civilisation’ MBauer LSE

38. Social influence = negotiations between group A and B Symmetrical [ A ~ B ] Normalisation by Compromising a frame of reference coming to common terms;without a strong project, ‘no axes to grind’; equality of resources; Habermas’ ideal speech situation applies Asymmetrical [ A > B ] strong projects involved, basic value commitments are at stake Assimilation [bring minority into-the-fold] ‘majority influence’: strategy of the strong, power in number: public agreement / private disagreement [normative] Accommodation [make inroads with majority] ‘minority influence’: strategy of the weak; power of dissent public disagreement / private endorsement [informational] Paradox of minority influence: in order to exert influence, the minority needs to have discipline [= successful minorities require professionalism] MBauer LSE

39. Social co-ordination of activity: Establishing, Maintaining and Altering Moral Communality (a spiral of communication) N The newcomer Normalisation [Sherif type] Assimilation [Asch, Milgram type Tarde type] Accommodation [Moscovici type] deviance Representations = normative constraint = artefacts MBauer LSE

40. MBauer LSE

41. Extension I Mass Mediation print, broadcasting, internet MBauer LSE

42. Limitation of experimental paradigms Social influence experiments are ‘laboratory dramas’: face-to-face situations arranged by an experimenter; limited ecological validity, because modern social influence is heavily based on mass mediated communication Irony: experiments are banned under ‘ethics code’ but TV makes use of their dramatic qualities (dramatic effect, not causal claim is at stake) Duality of face-to-face and formal communication? Small groups experiments = face-to-face; co-presence of others What happens if mass mediation comes into play? Two different processes; different degrees of freedom; Can we analogize? Do we have to consider emergent properties? Social influence is exerted via informal but also via formalized mass media (i.e. professional preparation of meanings) MBauer LSE

43. Informal and Formalised Communication LSE MBauer PS429

44. MBauer LSE Source: C Tennant, LSE06

45. MBauer LSE

46. intensity Exploring the ‘resonance’ between two spheres - Match + Mass media on topic/actor X: Attention, positioning and framing Media effects Emerging norms of meaning Conversations on X: salience and meaning Audience research MBauer LSE

47. Mediation models: formal communication noise C, M S Shannon-Weaver HIFI engineering model R R1 R2 Audience autonomy research S C, M R3 Rn C M’ S1 ‘different worlds’ Differentiation of contents and receptions Media Systems S2 Two-step flows Social Representations M’’ C S1 S2 C M’’’ S1 S2 MBauer LSE

48. The historical pendulum of ‘belief’ in power of mass media Weak effect Strong effect ? 1950s, 1990s 1930s, 1970s MBauer LSE

49. Mass media effect hypotheses Ways of operationalising ideas of ‘resonance’ alternatives to ‘magic bullet’ ‘epidermic needle’ ‘hifi models’ Agenda setting (weak): (McCoombs, Rogers et al.) Agenda setting (strong): (Mazur et al. ) quantity of coverage of fluoridation, vaccination stories Framing of issues ‘as X’ (Gamson et al.): images, definition, culprits, solutions Cultivation under high exposure (Gerbner et al.) ‘mean world’; coding of Red and Green biotechnology Consistency-or-experts hypotheses (Rothman et al.) source credibility requires expert agreement: see ‘global warming’ Gap hypotheses for knowledge, motivation etc (Tichenor et al.) new technology faster prevalent among the educated Spiral of silence (Noelle-Neumann) dissent shuts up: Anti-GM crop voices in the US; anti-war voices MBauer LSE

50. ? MBauer LSE