What is social influence?
Social influence means other people changing what we think, feel or do. It can come from the majority (the big group), from an authority (obedience) or from a minority (a small group with a new idea).
Social influence is not always bad. It helps us learn rules and fit in. But it can also push people to act badly, or stop new ideas.
Crowd and collective behaviour: social loafing and deindividuation
Social loafing
Social loafing is putting in less effort when working in a group than when working alone. In early rope-pulling tests, people pulled less hard as the team grew. Why? Each person's own effort cannot be seen, and they expect others to do the work.
How to reduce it: make each person's work visible and checked, keep groups small, and give a task people care about.
Deindividuation
Deindividuation is losing your sense of being an individual when you are anonymous, for example in a big crowd, wearing a mask or uniform, or in the dark. You feel less self-aware and less afraid of blame, so you may follow the crowd instead of your own rules.
Studies found people wearing hoods gave stronger (fake) shocks than people with name tags. But deindividuation can also make people kinder if the crowd's norms are kind, such as at a charity run.
Personality and morality in crowds
Not everyone in a crowd acts the same. Two things inside the person matter:
- Personality: people with high self-confidence or an internal locus of control are less swept along. People who need to be liked follow the crowd more.
- Morality: people with strong, well-thought-out moral values (they judge by principles, not just rules) are more likely to refuse to join harmful acts and more likely to help.
So crowd behaviour = situation (anonymity, group size) + person (personality, morals).
Resisting social influence
Social support
When one other person disagrees with the group, you feel less alone. In line-judging studies, having just one ally who gave the right answer cut conformity from about one-third of answers to about 5%. In obedience studies, seeing other teachers refuse also made people refuse.
Locus of control
Locus of control is where you think control over your life sits.
- Internal: "What happens to me depends on my own effort." These people rely less on others and resist pressure more.
- External: "Luck, fate or powerful people decide." These people conform and obey more.
Minority influence and social change
Minority influence is when a small group changes the views of the majority. Unlike majority pressure, it usually changes what people really believe (internalisation), not just what they say.
- Consistency: the minority says the same thing over time and among themselves. Studies with blue-green slides showed a consistent minority changed about 8% of answers; an inconsistent one barely changed any.
- Commitment: they pay a price (time, money, risk), which makes others think "they must really believe it" (the augmentation principle).
- Flexibility: they listen and accept fair compromises. Too rigid looks stubborn.
How social change happens
- A minority draws attention to an issue.
- Its consistency and commitment make people think deeply about it.
- A few people switch; then more, faster: the snowball effect.
- The new view becomes the majority norm.
Examples: votes for women, campaigns against smoking in public, and recycling. Social change is also helped by obedience (laws) and by showing people what most others already do (social norms campaigns).
Try it
In the free play, move the team size from 1 to 8. Predict each person's effort first. Then at home, ask family members to clap as loud as they can alone, then all together. Does each person seem to clap as hard in the group? How could you check?
Key formulas and definitions
- Social loafing: bigger group โ less effort per person (effort is hidden)
- Deindividuation: anonymity โ less self-awareness โ follow crowd norms
- Resistance: social support (one ally) ยท internal locus of control
- Minority influence: consistency + commitment + flexibility
- Social change: attention โ deep thinking โ snowball โ new norm
Worked examples
1. In a 6-member project team, two students do almost nothing. Name the effect and suggest one fix.
Social loafing. Fix: give each student a named part that is marked separately, so each person's effort is visible.
2. Why might fans in a stadium crowd shout insults they would never shout alone?
Deindividuation. In a huge crowd they feel anonymous, so self-awareness and fear of blame drop, and they follow the crowd's norms instead of their own.
3. A small group campaigns for a plastic-free school. Using minority influence, how should they act?
Repeat the same clear message all year (consistency), give up their own time to run clean-ups (commitment), and accept fair compromises like a slow phase-out (flexibility). Once a few classes join, the snowball effect can make it the school norm.
Common mistakes
- Thinking deindividuation always makes people bad. It makes people follow the crowd's norms, which can be kind.
- Mixing internal and external locus of control. Internal = 'I control what happens'; they resist more.
- Saying a minority wins by being stubborn. It needs flexibility as well as consistency.
- Thinking social loafing means people are lazy by nature. It comes from the situation: hidden effort in a group.