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1-Page Summary of Invisible Influence
Overview
It seems like some people are easily influenced. They follow trends and change their opinions based on tweets or fashion styles that don’t fit them. However, you would never let yourself be so easily influenced, right?
The following points will show that we are influenced by external forces and factors more than we would like to admit. Fortunately, you can learn how to spot these influences and use them to your advantage.
You will learn about the benefits of attending every class session, as well as how a big hurricane influenced naming.
Big Idea #1: Every decision you make is affected by others, and identifying this influence can help you overcome it.
Most people think that the reasons behind their clothes and cars are based on objective features like price, mileage or design. However, this is not always true. Social pressure affects our actions and preferences, even how we see ourselves.
We are influenced by our environment and the people around us. For example, if you grew up in a neighborhood where everyone teased bookworms, then that might have caused you to develop negative feelings toward reading. But why do we let other people influence us so easily? One reason is because we’re vulnerable to subtle factors like how attractive someone is or whether they attend many classes. In one study, psychologists found that when four women attended different numbers of classes at the same college, it affected how much attention they got from men in the classroom.
At the end of the semester, Moreland gave all four students photographs and asked them to rate their looks. The majority picked the woman who attended 15 sessions, but they didn’t realize that they had never met her!
Simply put, people prefer to be around familiar people. This is because they feel more comfortable with them. Social influence plays a big role in this preference. However, if you’re aware of that fact, it won’t have as much of an effect on your preferences and decisions.
A child may be influenced by other kids who hate bookworms. However, he will soon realize that those children are wrong and start to read more books. He might then ask himself whether people who read a lot of books are losers. After considering all the great scientists and writers who were avid readers, he’ll realize that they’re not losers at all but rather successful people with many followers.
Big Idea #2: We’re inclined to imitate others and adopt their opinions.
Learning about social influence, we now know that we’re more likely to conform to the behavior and opinions of those around us. We do this because it saves time and because of peer pressure. For example, in 1951, psychologist Solomon Asch conducted an experiment where groups were asked to match a line on a card with one of three other lines drawn on another card. The correct answer should have been obvious – except six actors out of seven gave the same incorrect answer. One real participant was called on last and conformed in one-third cases by giving an incorrect answer as well.
But it’s not just logic that we imitate. We also mimic emotions, like when we see someone smile and then our own brain cells – called mirror neurons – make us start smiling.
The phenomenon of hype can be explained by the power of imitation. It’s nearly impossible to predict how popular a song, movie or book will become because people are influenced by their peers and imitate them.
In a study, teens were asked to listen to unknown songs and download the ones they liked. One group of participants undertook the process without outside influence while another could see how many times each song had been downloaded by previous participants. The second group gravitated toward popular songs that had been frequently downloaded by previous participants, but also chose some good songs as well.
