Social Influence

Every person is born as a human child with certain biological needs. There is no doubt that he comes into the world alone but as soon as he is born, he is no longer alone. Family, neighbourhood, society – all form his social environment. He responds and learns from the experiences he experiences in social situations. Therefore, we can say that the influence of a group on a person starts from the very day he is born. Social Influence is the process in which efforts by one or more people change the behaviour, attitudes, or feelings of one or more others.

Types of social Influence:

Some social psychologists have described many types of social influence. Donnerstein (1984) and Kahn have described two types of social influence-

1. Informational social influence

In informational social influence, a person changes his behaviour and attitudes by accepting information given by another person about a social reality; For example, if a trusted person informs that an earthquake may occur tomorrow and to save oneself from it, the person leaves his house and settles in a field, then this effect will be called informational social effect. The truth is that informational social influence arises as a result of individuals' desire to obtain accurate or valid information about social realities.

2. Normative social influence.

In normative social influence, a person accepts the influence of others motivated by the desire to be socially accepted or to get praise, so he brings changes in his behaviour accordingly. In this, a person accepts the influence of others because by doing so he gets praise or reward and he saves himself from punishment or exceptional situation. For example, after failing in the examination, the student becomes ready to immediately accept every suggestion of his parents related to studies because he understands that by doing so, he will not be able to get reprimand from the parents. This would be an example of normative social influence.

Raven and Rubin (1983) have classified social influences on the basis of social power. He says that the agent producing the effect may have one or more of the six types of social power through which he can produce a special social effect by bringing about the desired change in the attitudes and behaviours of the target person.



Responses to social influence

An important question that arises here is that how do the people who are tried to be influenced socially react to those social influences? The general opinion of social psychologists is that in such a situation the targeted person performs three types of processes which are as follows-

a. Conformity or similarity,

b. Compliance, and

c. Obedience.