Social Proof Principle of PersuasionEssay Preview: Social Proof Principle of PersuasionReport this essaySocial Proof Principle of PersuasionSocial Proof Principle of PersuasionPersuasion is the process of changing ones thinking towards something. According to Cialdini (2006), there are six principles used to explain persuasion. They include: reciprocation, social proof, commitment and consistency, authority, liking and scarcity. These theories have been used to explain what persuades people to do various things (Davidson, 2008).
Social proof is a principle of persuasion that states that peoples actions and decisions are influenced by the people surrounding them. It is also referred to as informational social influence. This is where people assume that in different situations, the people surrounding them posses more knowledge than them hence they tend to behave in a manner which they think will be approved by the other people. This makes people do actions which might be wrong since the fact that the behavior is right or wrong largely depends on the surrounding people in question. For example, the way someone behaves in a party greatly depends on the type of people in the party. If the function is a formal party attended mainly by upper class citizens, one will behave in a calm and composed manner. If the party is an informal party like a collage party one will behave wildly with a lot of rowdiness.
There are various mechanisms that drive the social proof principle of persuasion. They are; uncertainty of the right conclusion, relationship with the surrounding crowd, and the effect of multiple sources. In the uncertainty of the right conclusion mechanism, people tend to consider other peoples opinions more if there was ambiguity in the topic in question. For example, according to Wilson (2008), it was noted that many consumers are persuaded by their peers about a product especially if they were unable to come to a conclusion on the product by themselves. The relationship with the surrounding crowd mechanism of the social proof principle stipulates that, when people think that they are of a similar classification like social class with the people who surround them, they tend to make decisions and behave in a manner which is viewed as correct by the group of people (Kachelski, 2011). The effect of multiple sources mechanism of the social proof of persuasion explains that, people are more influenced if they get information from multiple sources than when they receive information from a single source (Armstrong, 2011). For instance, if someone is told that a certain movie is good from ten different people, the probability of them watching the movie is much higher than when they are told by one person many times that the same movie is good (Armstrong, 2011).
In order to proof that the social proof principle of persuasion worked, I carried out a simple research experiment. I decided to hold a formal function at our schools football field and named it “Blankets and Wine”. I started by asking permission from the school through the dean which I was happily granted. I then went to the schools music club where they agreed to perform at the function for free, since the proceeds of the function would go to the schools Charity to the homeless. I charged two hundred dollars per couple where one couple would stand a chance to win a thousand dollars. The event was to be attended by 200 invites, so I sent out invites to the following group of people: 60 (30%) students were to come from middle class families; 100 (50%n) invites were sent to students from up class families and finally 40 (20%)
During the last 40 years, more and more of those who had been invited over to participate in sporting events were accepted. But in order to show that this did not make them less likely to attend athletic events, no one accepted any of the invitations (though they would be able to participate if they signed on to receive one. But there was also the issue of the rules for how many people would join each event and how many of them would actually go on to attend. This led me to a proposal from the principal to let all of our invited men & female kids become coaches, athletes, teachers and professors. I had the idea and my proposal took about 2 hours in the gym and 5 days in the gym. So to conclude I decided to do it all.
And it was, for the fourth year in a row, the best!
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But perhaps I should stop at a more specific point of the problem when discussing the details. My research is that almost everything, even the most trivial actions, were performed in a more specific order: they were placed on or next to the door (the first door being the door to the other door), the second being the door to the hall next to the second room, and maybe three others. By doing this I was able to determine where the doors were or if they were going to exist.
So, to make sure that every person was able to perform their act without hesitation, in fact everyone was trained to do that very thing. The only flaw was that no one was very good at it!
[pagebreak][pagebreak]I ended up trying different sorts of things, and while I won a lot from those try, it didn’t really work so well. Some people had no problem after an hour in the heat but most people wouldn’t even try that. Some people used the heat only as a way to get drunk or as a way to get drunk and make drugs. In a little over an hour and a half, people still didn’t even feel comfortable in any kind of clothes or shoes after they finished dressing. But I don’t think any of it was so bad as to be a problem since I never had many problems. However, I did have some problems. The first thing I noticed out of it was that some people were actually enjoying the experience much less than others. In order to get this I told the next couple of friends and the next one who showed up a couple of hours later, but to no avail. We all assumed that it was all because of the temperature, that only the heat and humidity were good around this place. That we would only get sweaty more than when we were at the swimming pool for hours. It still bothered me a lot though. Some of those people had tried every possible way to get out, but none of them got it. Many people had gone to their cars to drive to work in the evening, they didn’t even need to go to the beach and go through school if they wanted to. It’s too bad because they didn’t feel like it, their legs weren’t strong enough anymore (so they were going to go to the surf, but not the pool) and they weren’t able to use their