We are inherently social creatures and spend most of our time in the presence of others. Population growth, working environments, telephones and social networking all result in us being exposed to the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of a lot of people. This of course must have some effect on us. The idea that one behaves as a 'lone' decision maker, impervious to the influence of others around us, is naïve. Of course we know of people who like to think of themselves as unique and embed this idea of 'going it alone' and not being influenced by those around them into their identity, but on the whole they are probably misguided. One reason we can be strongly influenced by those around us is a need to belong or to be liked by others. A blog here discusses it http://psychologyshared.blogspot.com/2010/10/i-cant-be-alone.html. To some extent this isn't such a bad thing, as sometimes to get along in life we need to be liked by others and adapting our behaviour to fulfil this need is sensible. Sometimes you have to grin and bear things to please others.
This consideration aside, the following blog discusses another side of social influence, which I have aptly named; 'informational social influence'. The main idea being that we will often use information others provide us with as evidence about our own reality. Such influence may be particularly strong when a situation is ambiguous or when we are uncertain about something. In general, although the idea of conforming or being influenced by others has somewhat negative connotations (probably due to a current over emphasis and implicit liking of individualism).This kind of influence definitely isn't always a bad thing. However, there will be times when it is and isn't in our best interests to be guided by informational social influence. This blog uses some existing research to attempt to think about when such informational social influence may be advantageous and very useful to us, and under what circumstances it may be more of a hindrance than a help.
When thinking about an event in the future we haven't experienced before, one might have a tendency to think we know best about what we will and won't like. A friend who won't try a new food you have been raving about is a simple enough example. 'Nobody knows me better than I do, so I should go with my instincts.' But this perhaps isn't such a wise stance to take; as those around us can provide us with valuable information we haven't had access to. In fact, observing how others react to experiences or 'vicarious learning' is thought to be a key mechanism by which we learn about the world. In line with this, developmental psychologist Leann Birch and colleagues show that a child’s likelihood of trying a novel or unfamiliar food is greatly increased once they have seen somebody else eat it, presumably because this tells us the food is safe to eat. For example, Addessi et al. (2005) examined this in 2-5 year olds and showed that the kids would be far more likely to try some semolina if they observed an adult eating that food, rather than eating something slightly different. Knowing that somebody else has eaten something and it hasn't been unpleasant or perhaps has even been enjoyable is valuable information.
Wilson et al. (2010) report a study that shows this kind of idea in more of a real 'grown up' world scenario. Here psychology undergraduates were invited to take part in a speed dating event. Each lucky girl would get the opportunity to go on a mystery date with a male undergraduate student and shortly afterwards rate how much they enjoyed themselves. However, prior to the date, participants were given some pretty interesting information. In one condition the females were given background information, such as course, hobbies etc. about their up and coming date. In another, the females got something slightly different. They were given information about how much the previous participant enjoyed their date with the bloke awaiting them. Both groups then predicted how much they thought they would enjoy the date.
The main analysis of interest was whether knowing how much another enjoyed the date resulted in participants being more accurate in their predictions of enjoyment, or whether 'non social' information (such as hobbies and interests; that you might suggest reveals a lot about a person) was more useful. Participants were far more accurate in working out how enjoyable the date would be after having been given access to others accounts of their dates. One might like to view oneself as having very individual tastes and therefore right to ignore others accounts of experiences. Yet, as we all have a fair deal of similarity in what we do and don't like, what this kind of study suggests is that we would be wise to spend time listening to others experiences if we really want insight into what we will and won't like in life when we haven't had first hand experience of it our self. This of course poses another question. What about when we have had first hand experience of something our self? Should we be so keen to be led by the voices and behaviours of others?
I would argue that this is when we really should be extremely wary of the information others are giving us. A classic study by psychologist Solomon Asch underlines this well. Here participants attended a study in which they sat with others in a room whilst looking at some images of lines that varied in length (yes, an exciting study for all). In front of them would be two lines, their simple task was to judge which was longer. Viewing this experiment from the outside, it would seem as though the correct answers were painstakingly obvious. However, the other 'participants' sat with them were not real participants at all. They were actors who were working with the experimenter to examine whether answering incorrectly would cause the real participant to follow suit. The results are interesting and show a strong account of social influence in action; knowing others beliefs about the correct and incorrect answers strongly influenced participants and caused a high proportion to answer incorrectly. A follow up study also showed that when participants answered questions out of sight and in private (and thus under little influence to please the other group members,but still after hearing others incorrect responses), the impact of the others incorrect responses still remained. Thus, others can skew our perceptions of reality and influence us, even when we have first hand experience of what is going on in front of us.
A suggested limitation of Asch like studies is that they don't tell us much about the real world. The line judgement task isn't representative of a situation in which we might be influenced by others. The good news is that I have an experiment that I have done that very much is. Here we had participants come to our lab and eat a snack food. We then slightly mislead participants and told them the study was about whether other peoples eating habits and preferences can tell us anything about their personalities. So, we gave participants some answers one of our 'previous participants' had given us regarding their eating preferences and dieting habits. Our previous participants had also happened to have eaten the same snack food that our participant had eaten earlier in the session and written their thoughts about it. In one condition of the experiment our previous participants really didn't like the snack food, in another condition (a control condition), they thought it was OK, average, nice enough. Twenty minutes later we then asked our participant to think back to eating the snack food and rate how enjoyable it was. Being exposed to negative views about the snack food had a big impact on how much participants thought they enjoyed the food; it dropped significantly. Furthermore, I have data from a different study which suggests that hearing others positive views can have a similar effect and this then has a knock on effect on how keen participants are to eat the food again.
In the above case, we would perhaps be best to rely on our own opinions. If we didn't enjoy a film or food the first time round, it is unlikely to change that much the second. There are of course exceptions to every rule – sometimes friends might be able to point out something that we missed or we may have tried something and it has now changed. Yet, a problem arises when we already have first hand evidence that we don't particularly like something, but after a word in our ear we then find ourselves doing it again. Those around us are a rich source of information and when we have very little experience or expertise of something we should be taking in as much 'social information' as possible, as this is likely to improve how accurate we are in second guessing whether something will be enjoyable or for us in life. Yet, first hand experience is probably even more compelling evidence and when we have this we should think carefully about how others might be influencing our perceptions and opinions of what we do and don't like.
Application
The general application is very much spelt out in the blog.
Tell your friends you couldn't care less how much they like things that you don't.
Use IMDB more.
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