INFLUENCE, GROUP SIZE, UNANIMITY, COHESION

WHAT IS INFLUENCE?

The capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others: He used family influence to get the contract or the action or process of producing effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of another or others: Her mother's influence made her stay or a person or thing that exerts influence: He is an influence for the good. For better or worse, marketing and communications professionals tackle all these definitions of influence from a variety of angles in recent months. Here are just a few, which range from elementary and practical, to academic:

Influence Identification:      Can it be identified? Can it be measured? Can it be harnessed? Has nature determined any given person more influential than another? Or are there specific variables that ultimately determine influence, such as popularity, reach, expertise, trust, willingness to speak, history, or association?

Group Influence:       What are the influence dynamics of groups? How do they differ from individuals? Are cohesive groups really more influential over their members? What brings them together and inspires them to act? How are people influenced by the cognitions and attitudes of others in their social group?

Emotional Impact On Influence:    How do emotions affect the ability of one to influence or be influenced? Are happy people more likely to influence, while sad people are more likely to be influenced? How much is primal and in our subconscious?

Contextual Impact:   How much does context or familiarity matter for influence to occur? As Jeff Jarvis noted at Edelman’s recent roundtable on online influence, it wasn’t necessarily his influence that sparked Dell Hell. It was the fact that his experience struck a chord with the pain of thousands of other customers across the Internet. Which then begs the question: Does influence behave differently online versus offline?

 

Influence of Algorithms:      How do algorithms — particularly in Web services — influence people? Does Google influence by defining what people see and where to focus attention? Do search-based “meme trackers” like Techmeme or BuzzTracker have inordinate influence versus other information sources? What about social-voting sites like Digg or Del.icio.us? Do algorithms cultivate the influence of individual people?

Influence Application:         Can influence really inform marketing communications strategy to achieve higher performance? Does it make better sense to segment and market to those who are most influential, or those who are most easily influenced? Or is it a mix of both? Can we influence the influencers, or are we limited to simply observing and reacting to their actions and ripples? Are these even the right question when applying influence to marketing strategy?

With all the attention around influence, and many unanswered questions, what we need most is more practical testing, tied to specific marketing objectives and applications. The marketer’s Holy Grail of influence is the ability to recognize patterns and optimize outcomes — whether for advertising, media-planning, public relations, word-of-mouth marketing, etc. Without question, influence often rides on nothing more than spontaneity. However, deeper understanding will lead to bets and actions with more favorable odds.

INFLUENCE OF GROUP SIZE

In laboratory experiments a group need not be large to have a large effect. Asch and other researchers found that three to five people wilt elicit much more conformity than just one or two. Increasing the number of people beyond five yields diminishing returns (Rosenberg, 196I; Gerard & others,1968). In a field experiment, Milgram, Leonard Bickman, and Lawrence Berkowitz (1969) had 1, 2, 3,5,10, or 15 people pause on a busy New York City sidewalk and look up.

Bibb Latane(1981) accounts for the diminishing returns of increases –in group size with his "social impact theory." It proposes that social influence increases with the immediacy and size of the group. But as the number of influencing persons increases, the increments in social impact decrease: The second person has less effect than the first, and person n has less effect than person.

The way the group is "packaged" also makes a difference. Researcher David Wilder (1977) gave University of Wisconsin students a jury case. Before giving their own judgments, the students watched videotapes of four confederates giving their judgments. When presented as two independent groups of two people, the participants conformed more than when the four confederates presented their judgments as a single group. Similarly, two groups of three people elicited more conformity than one group of six, and three groups of two people elicited even more. Evidently, the agreement of several small groups makes a position more credible.

UNANIMITY

Inline yourself in a conformity experiment where nil but one of the people responding before you give the same wrong answer. Would the example of this one nonconforming confederate be as liberating as it was for the subjects in. Milgram's obedience experiment? Several experiments reveal that someone who punctures a group's unanimity deflates its social power (Alien &. Levine, l969;Asch, 1955; Morris & Miller, 1975). Subjects will nearly always voice their convictions if just one other person has also done so. The subjects in such experiments often later say they felt warm toward and close to their nonconforming ally, but deny that the ally influenced them: "I would have answered just the same if he weren’t there."

It's difficult to be a minority of one; few juries is hung because of one dissenting juror. These experiments teach the practical lesson that it is easier to stand up for something if you can find someone else to stand up with you. Many religious groups recognize this. Following the example of Jesus, who sent his disciples out in pairs, the Mormons send two missionaries into a neighborhood together. The support of the one comrade greatly increases a person's social courage.

Observing someone else's dissent—even when it is wrong—can increase our own independence. Charlan Nemeth and Cynthia Chiles (1988) discovered this after having people observe a lone individual in a group of four misjudge blue stimuli as green. Although the dissenter was wrong, observing him enabled the observers later to exhibit their own form of independence. In a follow-up experiment, 76 percent of the time they correctly, labeled red slides "red" even when everyone else was calling them "orange," Lacking this model of courage, 70 percent of the lime observers went along with the group in calling red "orange."

COHESION

A minority opinion from someone outside the groups we identify with—from someone at another college or of a different religion--sways us less than the same minority opinion from someone within our group (dark & Maass, 1988, 1989). A heterosexual arguing for gay rights would more effectively sway heterosexuals than would a homosexual. The more cohesive a group is, the more power it gains over its members. In college sororities, for example, friends tend to share binge-eating tendencies, especially as they grow closer (Crandall, 1988).    

In experiments, too, group members who feel attracted to the group are more responsive to its influence (Berkowitz, 1954; Lott & Lott, 1961, Sakurai, 1975), They do not like disagreeing with group members. Fearing rejection by people they like, they allow them a certain power. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the seventeenth century philosopher John Locke recognized the cohesiveness factor: "Nor is there one in ten thousand who is stiff And insensible enough to bear up under the constant dislike and condemnation of his own club."

STATUS ON CONFORMITY

Conformity is a process by which people's beliefs or behaviors are influenced by others within a group. People can be influenced via subtle, even unconscious processes, or by direct and overt peer pressure. Conformity can have either good or bad effects on people, from driving safely on the correct side of the road, to harmful drug or alcohol abuse. Conformity is a group behavior. Numerous factors, such as group size, unanimity, cohesion, status, prior commitment and public opinion all help to determine the level of conformity an individual will reflect towards his or her group. Conformity influences the formation and maintenance of social norms.

Higher-status people tend to have more impact (Driskell & Mullen, 1990). Studies of jaywalking behavior, conducted with the unwitting aid of nearly 24,000 pedestrians, reveal that the baseline jaywalking rate of 25 percent decreases to 17 percent in the presence of a non jay walking confederate and increases to 44 percent in the presence of another jaywalker (Mullen & ethers, 1990). The nonjaywalker does best in discouraging jaywalking when he or she is well dressed (although, strangely, jaywalking confederates do not trigger more jaywalking when well dressed). Clothes seem to "make the person" in Australia too. Michael Walker, Susan Harriman. ("and Stuart Costello (1980) found that Sydney pedestrians were more compliant when approached by a well-dressed survey taker than one who was poorly dressed.

Milgram (1974) reports that in his obedience experiments people of lower status accepted the experimenter's commands more readily than people of higher status. After delivering 450 volts, one subject, a 37-year-old welder, turned to the experimenter and deferentially asked, "Where do we go from here, Professor?". Another subject, a divinity school professor who disobeyed at 150 volts, said; “I don't understand why the experiment is placed above this person's life," and plied the experimenter with questions about "the ethics of this thing".

Conformity based on a persons desire to fulfill others expectations, often to gain acceptance is called Normative influence.

Informational influence is conformity that results from accepting evidence about reality provided by other people.