Recognizable questions
- Why do I sometimes adjust my opinion to fit in with a group?
- Why do I trust some people or authorities more than others?
- Why can a group’s opinion influence me even when I personally have doubts?
- Why do ideas that are repeated often start to feel more familiar?
- What effect do music, images, and emotions have on how I experience information?
- Why can criticism of my group feel personal?
- How do belonging, recognition, and fear of exclusion affect my choices?
- Can influence exist without someone consciously trying to manipulate me?
- How do I recognize which influences are at play for me?
- How do I make space to keep thinking for myself?
What is social influence?
People influence one another every day through parents, school, friends, work, media, advertising, social media, experts, political movements, and religious communities. That is not automatically negative. Without social influence, we would hardly learn language, norms, cooperation, and social skills.
Social influence means that other people can affect our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. That starts at a young age. We learn language, habits, norms, and values from our environment; that process is called socialization.
Much of that is necessary and useful. At the same time, people also adopt ideas without fully examining every belief first. So the main question is not only: ‘Am I being influenced?’ Almost everyone is influenced. A more interesting question is: ‘Which influences are at play, and how much room do I feel I have to think for myself?’
Dependence and power
Power does not have to mean that someone is directly forced. In the social sciences, power is also linked to dependence.
When something matters to me and I am strongly dependent on a person or group for it, that other party can gain more influence. This may involve information, income, expertise, recognition, love, safety, social contact, or being allowed to belong somewhere.
That does not automatically mean that influence is being misused. A doctor, for example, has influence because of medical expertise, and parents have a great deal of influence over young children because children depend on them.
Useful questions are therefore: ‘Where does this influence come from? How dependent am I? What alternatives do I have?’
Conformity
Conformity means that someone brings their behavior, judgment, or opinion more in line with a group.
That can be wise. If everyone is walking on one side of a dangerous road, adjusting may be sensible. But group influence can also make someone conform even while personally doubting.
Solomon Asch’s classic experiments showed that other people’s answers can even influence us in a simple perception task.
Conforming does not mean someone is weak or stupid. Human beings are social creatures, and belonging somewhere matters.
Informational social influence
When we do not really know what is going on, we often look to others:
‘I’m not sure → who seems to know? → their information gets more weight.’
That is called informational social influence.
With a medical issue, for example, it makes sense that a doctor’s judgment carries more weight than that of someone without medical knowledge.
Even so, useful questions remain possible: ‘Does this person actually have expertise in this area? What is this conclusion based on? Are there other reliable sources?’
Normative social influence
Sometimes people conform not because they think the group is right, but because they want to belong.
That is called normative social influence.
It can happen at school, within families, friend groups, companies, online communities, and religious groups.
The key question then is not only ‘What do I think?’, but also ‘What does my group expect, and what will it cost if I differ?’
Fear of criticism, rejection, or exclusion can influence behavior without a person’s actual beliefs really changing.
An important question is therefore: ‘Am I doing this because I’m convinced, or because going against the grain could cost me?’
Classical conditioning
Ivan Pavlov’s research formed the basis for what we now call classical or Pavlovian conditioning.
When a previously neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with something that naturally elicits a response, that neutral stimulus can eventually trigger the response on its own.
People also learn such associations. Words, sounds, images, people, and places can acquire a strong emotional charge through experience.
For some current or former Jehovah’s Witnesses, words such as Armageddon, elders, or disfellowshipped can immediately evoke emotions.
On its own, that says nothing about whether a belief is true or false. It shows that our brain can learn connections between events and feelings.
Repetition and familiarity
When we encounter something more often, it becomes more familiar and easier to process. Research on the mere-exposure effect shows that repeated exposure, under certain conditions, can also influence our judgment.
But:
familiar ≠ proven true.
It is too simplistic to say: ‘If someone hears something often enough, they’ll automatically believe it.’
Repetition can influence familiarity, recognition, ease of processing, and sense of familiarity. This happens in advertising, education, news, social media, upbringing, and religious meetings.
Music, emotion, and framing
Information consists of more than words. Music, editing, voice use, facial expressions, images, and pacing can all help determine how a message is experienced.
Filmmakers use this constantly. The same happens in advertisements, documentaries, news productions, children’s programs, social media, and religious audiovisual programs.
That does not mean the viewer is therefore being mindlessly controlled.
Still, it can be useful to keep two questions separate: ‘What information am I getting?’ and ‘What emotion is being evoked around that information?’
Cognitive dissonance
When our behavior, experiences, and beliefs do not fit well together, tension can arise. Leon Festinger called this cognitive dissonance.
For example: ‘I want to live healthily’ and at the same time ‘I smoke every day.’
That tension can lead to different responses: changing behavior, revising a belief, looking for an explanation, or reinterpreting information.
The same can happen when new information clashes with political, religious, or personal beliefs.
Cognitive dissonance therefore does not automatically mean that someone is consciously fooling themselves.
Cialdini’s seven principles of influence
Robert Cialdini described seven well-known principles that can affect a person’s willingness to go along with a request or message: reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, scarcity, and unity.
Reciprocity means that we often want to give something back when someone does something for us. Commitment and consistency means that earlier choices can influence later ones. Social proof means that what many others do can seem more correct or appropriate. Liking makes influence easier when we like someone. Authority gives a message extra weight when someone is seen as knowledgeable or important. Scarcity can make something seem more attractive when it is limited. Unity refers to the extra influence that can arise when we think: ‘This person is one of us.’
These principles are not secret buttons that can automatically control people. They are general patterns that can help shape decisions.
Group identity
According to Henri Tajfel and John Turner’s Social Identity Theory, group membership can become part of how someone sees themselves.
A group can therefore provide many positive things: connection, support, pride, cooperation, and shared goals.
But a strong group identity can also mean that criticism of the group feels more personal:
‘criticism of my group’ → ‘criticism of me.’
That helps explain why conversations about groups we strongly identify with can quickly become emotional.
Diffusion of responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility is something different from group pressure.
When many people are present, someone may feel less personally responsible:
‘Someone else will probably do something.’
In conformity, the main question is: ‘What is the group doing?’
In diffusion of responsibility, the question is: ‘Who is responsible for doing something?’
This mechanism plays a role, among other things, in research on the bystander effect.
How can this happen within close-knit or religious groups?
None of these mechanisms is unique to religion.
They can occur within families, schools, companies, sports teams, political movements, activist groups, online communities, religions, and groups of former members.
Within a faith community, for example, authority, expertise, group norms, shared identity, repetition, personal stories, and connectedness can have influence.
That does not automatically mean manipulation is taking place.
For someone who is one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, meetings, Bible study, and contact with fellow believers can genuinely be tied to faith, joy, certainty, and belonging.
A former Jehovah’s Witness may look at some of the same experiences and wonder how much influence social norms or religious authority had on certain choices.
Psychology does not have to determine which conclusion someone should draw from that. It can help by asking more precise questions.
Influence is not the same as manipulation
It is important not to automatically equate those terms.
Influence is normal human behavior. Parents influence children, teachers influence students, friends influence one another, and experts influence people who ask for their advice.
Manipulation usually implies a more specific pattern in which influence is used in a problematic or deceptive way.
Simply identifying that someone has been influenced therefore does not yet say how, how strongly, with what intent, or with what effect.
Questions to think about
Which people and groups have a lot of influence on me?
Why do I trust them?
On which people or groups am I heavily dependent?
Which beliefs have I examined for myself?
Which ideas have I mainly heard often?
Do I sometimes go along because I want to belong to a group?
What do I think it will cost me if I differ?
Can I look at information that does not match my current view?
Does the person I listen to actually have expertise in this specific area?
Which emotions play a role when I make a decision?
What role do repetition, music, images, status, or group identity play?
What happens when someone criticizes a group I identify with?
Am I asking someone for information, advice, or actually for permission?
What might make me change my mind?
If I notice that I am being influenced, do I have room to think again?
Summary
Social influence is not an exception to normal human behavior. It is part of human behavior.
We learn from others, trust experts, sometimes adapt to group norms, connect our identity to groups, and respond to repetition, emotion, authority, and belonging.
That has many useful functions. Without social influence, upbringing, education, cooperation, and culture would hardly be possible.
But the same processes can also make us less consciously aware of why we think or do something.
Within close-knit or religious groups, mechanisms such as informational and normative social influence, dependency, conditioning, repetition, emotional presentation, cognitive dissonance, authority, and group identity can all play a role at the same time.
That does not automatically mean manipulation is involved, nor does it mean that a belief is therefore true or false.
Knowledge about influence does not therefore need to be mainly a way of pointing at others. It can start with:
‘My own thinking is influenced too.’
The goal is not to remove all influence from your life; that is impossible. The goal can be to recognize influence better, keep examining information, and take responsibility for your own choices as consciously as possible.
Sources and further reading
Solomon Asch – classic research on conformity and group influence. On the influence of group answers on individual judgment.
John R.P. French & Bertram Raven – The Bases of Social Power, 1959. On different sources of social power.
Richard M. Emerson – Power-Dependence Relations, 1962. On the relationship between dependence and power.
Ivan P. Pavlov – classic research on conditioning. The basis for understanding classical conditioning and associative learning.
Leon Festinger – A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, 1957. On the tension between beliefs, behavior, and experiences.
Robert B. Cialdini – Influence. On reciprocity, consistency, social proof, liking, authority, scarcity, and unity.
Henri Tajfel & John Turner – Social Identity Theory. On the role of group membership in identity.
John Darley & Bibb Latané – research on the bystander effect. On diffusion of responsibility.
Research on the mere-exposure effect. On repeated exposure, familiarity, and evaluation.
Research on music and audiovisual framing. On the influence of sound, image, and presentation on emotional interpretation.
Read also
Conditioning – How can words, images, and situations come to trigger strong emotional reactions?
Conformity – Why do people sometimes adapt their behavior or judgment to a group?
Cognitive dissonance – What happens when beliefs, behavior, and experiences clash?
Group identity – How does “we” become part of “who I am”?
Group pressure – How do a group’s expectations influence our choices?
Internalization – How do norms and expectations become part of our own inner voice?
Socialization – How do we learn norms, values, and beliefs from our environment?
