Two models of social influence

An individual often modifies his or her behaviour, assertions, deeply held beliefs, or even perceptions under social pressure from one or more other people. This intriguing phenomenon has its complementary aspect in the existence of social uniformities (in social groups or categories), which are at times deeply rooted in error. A scientific label, ‘social influence’, has been applied to these phenomena, methods – mostly experimental – were devised to study them, and theories were constructed for their interpretation.

The designation of influence as ‘social’ implies that theories are required which would be able to encompass the social – or more exactly, societal – dimensions in which social influence finds its roots. But this has not been the case (Mugny & Doise 1979). Little attention was paid to the ‘social’ in ‘social influence’ in the formulation of theories, which tended to be confined to intra-psychic mechanisms operating in abstract inter-individual encounters – abstract in the sense that no interest was shown in the social contexts (such as groups, categories or norms) by which these encounters are fashioned and which endow them with their significance. The ‘social’ is conspicuously absent in these explanations, almost as if it were too obvious to be considered (as is also the case in the explanation of other phenomena in social psychology; cf. Doise 1980).