“How my Christmas Grinch Grew to
Almost Love Christmas –
The Power of Social Influence”
Gabriela A Hernandez
(UID: 104583588)
Psych 137I –Social Influence
November 21, 2018
“How My Christmas Grinch Grew to Almost Love Christmas”
People often find themselves doing a favor or changing their behavior without a discernible reason. Many times these changes can be attributed to social influence. Although there are instances in which social influence is unintentional, social influence can be powerful tool when used intentionally. More specifically, social influence has proved to be effective in getting people onboard with your own agenda.
Since social influence is so powerful, I sought out to influence the one person that I thought I would never be able to change, my boyfriend. John is a Christmas Grinch; he hates everything having to do with Christmas and refuses to celebrate the holiday. He has gone as far as rejecting gifts and yelling “humbug” at every Christmas song. On the other hand, I am the girl who starts celebrating Christmas on the first day of November. I love Christmas. Unfortunately, his anti-Christmas behavior and attitudes dampened my Christmas joy in the past years, so this year I sought out to get him on board with the Christmas festivities. My goal was to get him to put up Christmas decorations this year.
Although social influence takes on many forms, conformity and compliance are the most relevant to the current situation. Conformity is the changing of behaviors, beliefs or attitudes to align with those of others as a result of social pressure (Smurda, 2018). Similarly, compliance is the act of agreeing to a specific request made by a person or group. (Cialdini, 2008). Both conformity and compliance are relevant to the situation, since the primary goal is getting John to change his Grinch-like behavior. Consequently, I plan to use reciprocity and commitment based compliance, as well as normative social influence to improve the likelihoods of getting my beloved Grinch to partake in this year’s festivities.
The probability of compliance can be increased through the use of reciprocity. The main idea of reciprocity is that a beneficiary of a favor or gift will feel the need to repay the benefactor. The rule is well-defined in social interactions and the feeling of “indebtedness” increases the likelihood of compliance with a future request made by the benefactor or their kin. Additionally, the rule allows for variation in the repayment’s magnitude or relevance, since it does not mandate equal exchange of benefits (Cialdini 2008). Therefore, it it plausible that if I were to do a favor for John or give him a gift, and later make a request, he would be more likely to comply due to feelings of indebtedness.
Similarly, commitment also increases probability of compliance. Commitment-based techniques rely on the idea that if someone has already committed to a behavior or attitude, they will try to remain consistent and will be more likely to continue related behavior and attitudes (Cialdini, 2008). These techniques are successful because the act of “choosing” a behavior or attitude changes self-perception and we then wish to be consistent with that new image (Freedman & Fraser, 1966). A common commitment based technique, the foot-in-the-door technique, exploits this need for consistency as it begins with small trivial requests that are later followed with larger related requests. Thus, if John were to freely agree to small requests, there would be a greater possibility of compliance to a more meaningful request due to a need for consistency.
Behaviors can also be influenced through social pressure. The natural desire of belonging can be used to influence those around you. In particular, normative social influence describes conformity as the means to avoid disfavor or exclusion from a particular group. It has been shown that conformers are typically more accepted than nonconformists (Schachter, 1951). Thus, when approval is uncertain, the likelihood of conformity increases (Dittes & Kelly, 1956). A practical example is observed when someone is trying to fit in with a significant other’s family, just as John is doing.
Although the effect of social influence has been thoroughly researched and its effects are shown to be very robust, there remained the question of whether social influence could make my beloved Grinch embrace Christmas. As mentioned, I planned to use two conformity techniques and normative social influence to achieve this Christmas miracle. It is important to mention that prior to implementing these techniques, John had adamantly rejected my idea to decorate his apartment. I therefore took any flexibility in this decision as evidence of social influence.
I first tried to use reciprocity based compliance. I purchased tickets to a car show that John had been dying to attend. I also joined him, something I hardly do, since I am not interested in cars. I hoped that he would not only see the tickets as a gift, but also view my attendance as an indirect favor, thereby initiating the rule of reciprocity. A few hours after the show, I asked him if he would consider putting up any Christmas decorations: a wreath, a tree or lights. He said no to all of them. I then moved on to my second technique: the foot-in-the-door. I started with small commitments and first asked him to wear a pair of Christmas themed socks. The following day I asked him to change the radio to the Christmas station. Then, I asked him go buy Christmas stockings and Santa hats at the craft store, which resembles Santa’s toy factory during this time of year. He granted all requests, but still said no to the decorations. In my third and final attempt to sway John’s answer, I tried to get him to conform to pro-Christmas behavior in the presence of social pressure. During a family gathering, I had my Christmas loving family comment and ask each other about holiday preparations. When asked about when he was going to start decorating John quickly replied “tomorrow”. The following day the lights were put up.
Overall, my attempt to get John onboard with Christmas decorations was successful. However, two of the three strategies did not produce the expected results. Although there are many possible explanations for these outcomes, the following analysis will focus on those applicable to the situation.
The normative social influence approach proved to be effective. It ultimately influenced John to conform to the group norms and put up Christmas lights. Its success may have been due to his need of approval and consistency. Firstly, I believe that John’s conformity was influenced by feelings of non-acceptance. He was still uncertain of my family’s feelings towards him; this uncertainty may have increased his willingness to conform within that group (Dittes & Kelly, 1956). In addition, by stating that he was going to decorate, he made public commitment in the presence of my family. Public commitment in turn increases related compliance because it evokes the need to appear consistent with one’s beliefs and actions. John was then externally motivated to be consistent with his promise. Overall the need for approval and consistency could have been contributing factors to conformity in this situation.
In contrast, the reciprocity and commitment based techniques proved to be ineffective in changing John’s behavior. In regards to the reciprocity technique, I believe there was activation of defense mechanisms in response to my “gift and favor”. By acknowledging that a gift is a trick to gain your compliance, it lessens the feeling of indebtedness (Cialdini, 2008). John did indeed activate this defense and jokingly made it known that he knew the real reason why I took him to the car show. He then paid me back for the tickets, further eliminating the effect of reciprocity. Moreover, I believe our long-term relationship also influenced the outcomes. It seems that reciprocity works differently within families, relationships and friendships. Within these relationships, there is absence of the “tit for that” mechanism, such that repayment is more relaxed and assumed to level eventually. (Smurda, 2018). This difference may have further lessened the effects of reciprocity.
The commitment based strategy also proved to be ineffective. The outcomes of this strategy were unexpected since there is evidence for a higher need of consistency in individualistic persons (Smurda, 2018). I had predicted that since John was very self reliant, there would be a greater impact of commitment and consistency on his behavior. An important consideration is that this exercise might not have triggered a change in self image. In order to change self image, a commitment has to be active, effortful, freely-chosen and public (Cialdini, 2008). Unfortunately, not all these requirements were met in my application. Wearing a pair of socks or purchasing a few Christmas items is not exactly effortful; There was also little to no exposure to the public eye and more importantly, it is difficult to determine whether John’s compliance was due to internal motivation. I posit that he may have completed the tasks as favors for me, allowing for the justification of his actions and lessening the need for consistency. Justification can work both ways; if justification is not sufficient, it may cause dissonance and cause compliance or conformity; but if there is sufficient justification, it can diminish the effect of consistency, commitment, and hypocrisy. I believe the latter is applicable here.
In my efforts there seems to be evidence of interpersonal factors that may contribute to the success or failure of these techniques. Factors, such as liking, attractiveness, relationships and charisma may be secretly playing a role in conformity and compliance. For example, John places great importance on my family’s acceptance of him; but its importance is a result of his relationship with me. Additionally, if he finds my family likeable or views them as a reference group then this also increases the likelihood of conformity. The interconnectedness of multiple factors makes it extremely difficult to discern the source of influence.
Overall, social influence did work on my Christmas Grinch. His heart grew 3 sizes and he is now not completely adamant about hating Christmas. Not only did this exercise help me in accomplishing my goal, but it also illustrated that social influence is not as black-and-white as I originally thought. First and foremost, I realized that drastic changes are harder to influence. I was unable to make John LOVE Christmas, but rather I was able to get him to take a step in the right direction. Through this experience I also learned that there is not a one-size-fits-all technique. This is due to overlap between personal and interpersonal factors making it difficult to predict what will or will not work with an individual or group. I was also reminded ability to defend ourselves from the influence of others and that perception is a useful tool. More generally, this experience drew attention to the great potential of social influence. With the exploration of its effects, comes hopes that we are aware of its effects next time we are tempted to buy a $100 back massager than will never be used.
References
Cialdini, R. B. (2008). Influence: Science and Practice. Boston, MA: Pearson.
Dittes, J. E., & Kelley, H. H. (1956). Effects of different conditions of acceptance upon conformity to group norms. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 53(1), 100-107.
Freedman, J. L., & Fraser, S. C. (1966). Compliance without pressure: The foot-in-the- door technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4(2), 195-202.
Schachter, S. (1951). Deviation, rejection, and communication. The Journal of Abnormal
and Social Psychology, 46(2), 190-207.
Smurda, J. D. (2018). Lecture 4: conformity (Part 1) [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from
https://ccle.ucla.edu/pluginfile.php/2530405/mod_resource/content/0/Lecture%20 4%20-%20Conformity%20-%20Part%201.pdf
Smurda, J. D. (2018). Lecture 5: conformity (Part 2) [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://ccle.ucla.edu/pluginfile.php/2539113/mod_resource/content/0/Lecture%20 5%20-%20Conformity%20-%20Part%202.pdf
Smurda, J. D. (2018). Lecture 6: Social Norms [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from
https://ccle.ucla.edu/pluginfile.php/2544158/mod_resource/content/0/Lecture%20 6%20-%20Social%20Norms.pdf
Smurda, J. D. (2018). Lecture 7: Compliance Techniques: Reciprocity, Commitment, & Scarcity conformity [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from
https://ccle.ucla.edu/pluginfile.php/2547683/mod_resource/content/0/Lecture%20 7%20-%20Compliance%20-%20Reciprocity%20%20Commitment.pdf