Social influence basics examples: what the cases show

Here are twelve ordinary moments, none of them dramatic, and in each one somebody's behavior was changed by somebody else. For every case the same two questions are answered: which channel carried the influence, and whether it would have survived the person finding out.

What to take away

• Influence is mostly small, constant and unremarkable. The dramatic cases are the rare ones.
• The channel (information, norm or relationship) tells you what kind of evidence, if any, you were given.
• The disclosure question tells you whether it was legitimate. The two questions are independent, and both are worth asking.

Twelve cases

1. The tip jar with money already in it. Channel: norm. You see that others have tipped and you tip. If the seed money came from the till, the norm was staged. Survives disclosure: no. You would not feel the same pull knowing where the first notes came from.

2. The colleague who says "most of the team has already signed". Channel: norm, possibly information. If true, it is a fact about your colleagues and you may weigh it. If it is a guess dressed as a count, it fails. Survives disclosure: only if the count is real.

3. The doctor who says "most of my patients in your situation choose this". Channel: information, from an accountable source with relevant experience. Survives disclosure: yes, and you can still ask what the others chose and why.

4. A friend's book recommendation. Channel: information plus relationship. You trust their taste and you want to have read what they read. Survives disclosure: yes. Knowing exactly why you took the recommendation changes nothing.

5. The "most popular" tag on the middle pricing plan. Channel: norm, as designed by the seller. It may be accurate. It is placed to be seen. Survives disclosure: only if it is a real count and the seller would be happy to say how it was worked out.

6. The letter saying most households on your street recycle. Channel: norm, real group, real behavior, checkable. Survives disclosure: yes. The sender's motive is obvious and stated, and the fact stands on its own.

7. Everyone at the meeting nods, so you do too. Channel: norm, and very possibly a norm nobody in the room holds. Survives disclosure: usually not, because on learning that the others were also nodding along, you would stop.

8. The charity form with a pre-filled amount. Channel: relationship (it feels mean to lower it) and norm (it implies what others give). Survives disclosure: partly. A stated "the average gift is this much" passes; an amount chosen so that reducing it feels like a slight does not.

9. The teenager told "everyone is going". Channel: norm, from a source with an interest. Peer pressure is this case at every age. Survives disclosure: depends entirely on whether "everyone" is a count or a mood, and the fast test is to ask for three names.

10. Reading that a product is "trending". Channel: norm, mediated by a platform whose definition of trending you cannot see. The bandwagon effect is the name for adopting something because adoption is rising, and it is rational only if the early adopters knew something. Survives disclosure: rarely. "Trending" is a claim about a curve, not about a product.

11. The mechanic who shows you the worn part. Channel: information, made checkable. Survives disclosure: yes. Showing rather than telling is what honest expertise looks like; what makes an expert worth deferring to is set out under authority.

12. The neighbor who helped you move and now wants a lift to the airport at five in the morning. Channel: relationship, and a fair one. Survives disclosure: yes. You know exactly why you are saying yes, and you would say it again.

What the cases have in common

	Survived disclosure	Did not
Information channel	3, 4, 11	None in this list
Norm channel	6, and 2, 5, 9 when the count is real	1, 7, 10, and 2, 5, 9 when it is not
Relationship channel	12, and 8 in its honest form	8 in its other form

Two things stand out. First, the information channel came through clean, which is the normal pattern: genuine information has nothing to hide, and the counterfeit versions of it are dealt with under informational influence. Second, the norm channel is where nearly all the doubtful cases sit, and in almost every one the doubt is the same: is this a real count of real people, or a staged impression of one? That single question, treated fully under normative influence and social proof, sorts most everyday cases on its own.

Running your own cases

Pick any decision from the past week that somebody else had a hand in. Name the channel. Then ask what you would have to learn for the decision to feel wrong. If the answer is "nothing", the influence was legitimate and you can stop. If there is a specific fact, you have found the mechanism, and the framework in social influence basics will tell you what kind it was.

The exercise is worth doing a few times, because after that the two questions ask themselves.

Common questions

Why are most of the doubtful cases about norms?

Because a norm is the cheapest thing to fake. Information can be checked and relationships take time; an impression of what others do can be staged in a sentence.

Is case 6, the recycling letter, really fine? It is designed to change my behavior.

Designed, yes, and openly. Everything about it survives your knowing exactly what it is for. That is the standard, not the absence of design.

What about the pre-filled donation, case 8?

It is the clearest example of one design choice sitting on both sides of the line. Same form, same box; the difference is whether the number is a report or a lever, and the charity knows which.

Does it matter whether the person meant to influence me?

For deciding what to do, no. For deciding how to feel about them, yes. Keep the two separate.