Public Opinion Through New Media

The Issue:  The idea of social proof, as presented in Robert Cialdini’s “Influence: Science and Practice.” Cialdini defines social proof as “determining what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct” (2009, p. 99) and describes how social proof influences the public.

Major Strength:  The major strength of these chapters lies in the detail in which Cialdini describes social proof.  He thoroughly explains what social proof is, how it is used in sales and other professions, and gives detailed examples of social proof in action.

Major Weakness:  Cialdini spends a large portion of the chapter giving examples of social proof, which I find helpful, but his choices of examples are not my favorite.  Not only are the examples somewhat dark, they are also incredibly specific, and most of the readers are not likely to ever be in a similar situation. These unique situations make me less engaged with the reading.

Underlying assumption:  All individuals are impacted by social proof, but one should not fully trust social proof.

Provocative Questions:  Are there more positive examples of social proof? At what point in life do we begin to recognize that we are following others and acting as they do?

The Issue: The principle of social proof is about how humans behave certain ways because we see others behaving that way. Cialdini discusses social proof and gives examples of many different situations where social proof can be seen in action.

Strength: Cialdini does a great job at explaining what social proof is and how it can be understood through a variety of situations. The examples he gives are clearly not all of the same severity, but he can link them all together through the principle of social proof. As I look back at what I highlighted, I am noticing that Cialdini does a good job of repeating himself without sounding like he’s repeating himself. I think that is great because he really emphasizes the point and tries to get readers to understand but not to a point where it’s completely redundant in ineffective. His discussion of the bystander effect was particularly impactful. I have studied this before but had never heard it put in quite the same terms. When he writes, “It means something very different to say that bystanders failed to help because they were busy versus because the street on which the incident occurred was busy,” it adds a lot to the readers understanding.

Weakness: The examples Cialdini gave were really helpful at explaining the social proof phenomenon, however, they turned dark quite quickly. It would have been great to see more everyday/ordinary examples rather than cults and murders and suicides. It would be helpful to get an understanding of examples where social proof is more relevant to the average person.

Assumption: The biggest weakness of the principle of social proof is that people are unable to think for themselves. It seems as though people are made out to be robots that can be controlled by the others around them. The one occurrence of someone thinking on his own was the man who walked out after the flood/spaceman event failed to happen. The principle of social proof assumes that people are strictly looking to others on how to behave. I understand how this is a general/overarching principle, but it seems as though there would also be plenty of exceptions.

Questions: Is there a certain demographic group that can be seen to be more heavily influenced by the bystander effect or by the actions of others? Are there certain situations where the principle of social proof can be disproven that are not discussed here?

The Issue: In chapter four of Influence, Robert Cialdini discusses the principle of Social Proof, the idea that we view our behavior to be correct or incorrect based on the majority response.

Major Strength: Cialdini uses countless examples based on scientific studies as well as instances we face on a daily basis to support his argument for social proof. These include common occurrences where studies show individuals are less likely to act in an emergency situation, whether its a crime or a medical issue, if a large number of others are presence. The idea indicates individuals look to see how others are responding, and if no one is acting, then the assumption is there is no real need. Also, the belief that someone else has surely been assertive enough to make a call for help, thus there is no need for you to do so as well. Larger scale examples are also used such as the Jonestown incident, where just fewer than a thousand people followed cult leader Jim Jones from San Francisco to South America. Cialdini breaks down Jonestown and Jones’s method of persuasion. His foresight and understanding of psychology played hugely to his favor in being able to control the behaviors of his followers. The idea to alienate the People’s Temple followers from all that is familiar was a major step in gaining almost full control of their thinking patterns. By creating the community in Guyana, followers only had each other to look to for examples of how to act and react. Jones was the one that set the precedence for all of that and due to the lack of other examples it became an easy path for those community members to follow. That understanding was illustrated wonderfully in this writing.

Major Weakness: One weakness, in my mind, to Cialdini’s presentation of social proof came when he discussed the link in increased airplane and car deaths to the publicity of suicides. While numbers and scientific analysis shows a connection in these instances, Cialdini seemed a little less confident in his writing that social proof prevails in these scenarios. The discussion appeared to be hollow in that Cialdini was not very convincing that he bought the connection himself. At least that was the case in the early stages of the discussion. He did seem to draw a stronger stance on the topic when presenting David Phillips’ argument based on the “Werther effect.” Cialdini does admit Phillips’ findings were the convincing factors for him that the theory has grounds to stand on. Still, if the person attempting to convince me of belief feels the need to tell me what clinched his thoughts, the cynicism in me thinks he’s still not fully sold.

Underlying Assumption: The underlying assumption to me is that everyone blindly follows the masses without an ability to assess the situation individually and make an informed decision. During the reading, I certainly could put myself in situations and understand how our opinions can and are impacted by the actions of others, but Cialdini’s failure to acknowledge an individual’s ability to process that along with his/her own assessments leaves the masses to be generalized. Sure there is merit to the argument, but I believe there is an entirely other side that needs to be assessed.

Provocative Questions: If Cialdini’s presentation of social proof studied more closely the ability of individuals to process their own analysis of a situation with the reaction of the majority, would the case for pluralistic ignorance be quite as strong?

The Issue

In the two chapters we read, Lippmann focuses on where we get the information that forms our opinions and how that information is formed and interpreted to form our public opinion.

Major Strength

I think Lippmann does a superb job of pointing out the issues with how humans retrieve information that they deem the most important, the flaws in the reporting of this information and how humans don’t necessarily care or pay attention to the downfalls.

I also thought that Lippmann does a great job of supporting his opinions in the first chapter with extensive data.  In the previous readings we haven’t really witnessed scientific justification, more or less just examples or stories.

Major Weakness

The short comings of this section of Lippmann is that he doesn’t offer much in the form of the foreseeable future.  For instance he uses past data that does show a little bit of a trend from 1900 to 1916 to 1920 however doesn’t offer much of why that trend is taking place.  In the second chapter we read a great downfall was not including much on personal agenda when talking about the editors of the information.  We must keep in mind that these people have their own pseudo environments that could alter how they report the information they are given.

Underlying Assumption

A large part of human public opinion is formed through a very small amount of information (based on research about how much time people spend looking up “trusted” information) and that information comes from a long chain of communication and shouldn’t be viewed necessarily as the facts on a topic.

Provacative Questions

Obviously the research in the first chapter is obsolete so has the amount of time people spend digesting information that form their public opinion increased of decreased?  It seems that the chain of communication between listener and reporter is much more streamlined today… is it safe to assume that public opinion is “more accurate” to reality then it used to be?

The Issue: Cialdini introduces a phenomenon called social proof, when people’s actions are influenced by others around them.

Major Strength:  I like Cialdini’s writing.  Not only is his book easy to read and understand, he follows every theory or phenomenon with an example for further comprehension.  I enjoyed reading the different experiments of social proof.  I’m really glad he brought up the Kitty Genovese case since that has always been my example of social proof when I discuss it with other people – I actually had a discussion about it earlier this week with my dad.  During our week break, I witnessed a fight, 5 guys were beating on one guy.  I was in my car and saw it across the street.  Instead of falling into the bystander effect, I called the police immediately just in case none of the other witnesses took action.  I told my dad this story and told him that the reason I did that was because of the incident with Kitty Genovese and how I’m trying to prevent pluralistic ignorance.

 Major weakness:  I wish Cialdini explained how the cult of believers came believethat spacemen were coming down to save them.  I know that it’s based on Dr. Armstrong’s faith, but did they have any “proof” to convince the people that the spacemen would come? Where did the spaceman passwords come from? What made the people so vulnerable to make them belief in something like this?

Underlying assumption:  People can easily be manipulated by people in their surroundings, whether it’s through action or belief.  People assume that the majority is most likely correct and that in an emergency the more people there are the likelier someone will call for help.

 Provocative questions:  Cialdini explains that the followers of Dr. Armstrong’s and Mrs. Keech’s faith were disappointed after the clock struck 4:30am and yet no flood occurred.  How did the people go about their lives afterwards? Were they still easily persuaded into a belief? Were they ashamed about the incident? Were they then immune to such extreme social proof? It says that after the incident they still followed Mrs. Keech’s actions, but I’m wondering how these people are many years after the incident.

The Issue: Social proof is the underlying factor to most of our decisions. We base our reactions on others like us that we observe.  Social proof is most influential under two conditions: Uncertainty and similarity. When you’re uncertain about how to act you’re more likely to accept the actions of others and follow in their path. Similarity occurs when you witness people like yourself doing a certain thing or reacting a certain way and you follow their influence. The pluralistic ignorance phenomenon explains when people look to see what everyone is doing and then adopt that action which is Cialdini’s explanation of the bystander effect.

Major Strength: Numerous examples are presented from scientific research to examples in the news. His argument is strengthened not only by the amount of examples but the various avenues that he takes to explain his theory. The example that sticks out the most to me is the one about Jonestown and the mass suicide in Guyana. The survivor that didn’t drink the juice said that she didn’t because she felt like she didn’t owe anything to Jim Jones because she never took any of the gifts he presented (which goes into reciprocity later on in the book). Everyone made the decisions they did as a part of the People’s Temple were made based on decisions they saw other people making. After a few individuals made the decision to do it, everyone thought of it as acceptable to make the same decision. Each Jonestown member looked to the actions of other members to assess the situation and learned their behaviors from watching others.

Major Weakness: A weakness in Cialdini’s argument would be that apparently no one can make any education decision on their own and it’s all based on what they observe in others. I think that there is truth in his argument but it’s not so black and white. To say that no one person ever truly makes their own decisions and only looks to others is not very feasible.

Underlying Assumption: We make decisions in our lives based on what others around us are doing. Cialdini gives examples of the bystander effect and explains that our assumption is that someone else will take action. He even goes as far to say that if you want someone to take action to be direct and single them out so the responsibility lies on their shoulders specifically.

Provocative Questions: While Cialdini talks about everyone following the mass majority of the group, what about the people who don’t like to go with group? The one’s in high school that don’t want to fit in, are those the one’s that we should expect to not have pluralistic ignorance? At the root of religion, couldn’t they be forms of social proof?

The issue
There are a few things Lippmann is trying to argue in these chapters. The first being a comment on demographics and the way one is raised and educated has much to do with how they obtain and interpret public affairs. In Chapter 5 he delves a bit deeper, explaining that an individual’s own bias and frame of reference has much to do with how we interpret matters of public opinion and public affairs. Basically he believes it is somewhat impossible for everyone to agree on one idea and one opinion as a whole.  He says, “The power to dissociate superficial analogies, attend to differences and appreciate variety is lucidity of mind. It is a relative faculty.”

Major strength
I think Lippmann makes a valid point in recognizing that we all interpret news and matters of public affairs differently. We all come from different backgrounds and thus have different biases and opinions of messages that are formed. Therefore, we choose our media and matters of public opinion based on what we hold to be true. However, this could also be seen as one of the weaknesses since he argues that these biases seem to always a negative thing.

Major weakness
Lippmann doesn’t have a problem making assumptions and generalizations in his argument. First, he comments on the demographics of newspaper readers and public affairs seekers saying such things like “Moreover, business men, professional people, and college students are most of them liable to a curious little bias against appearing to spend too much time over the newspapers, and perhaps also to a faint suspicion of a desire to be known as rapid readers.” The reader must ask Lippmann then, “why?” Is it because he is assuming they are expected to be smarter?

Another point Lippmann makes is that newspapers are “not the only means, but they are certainly the principal ones.” He says other sources of information such as magazines, public forums and trade union meetings all supplement the press, but can not be the dominant voice like the newspapers can. While indeed newspapers were the main source of news and opinion at the time Lippmann wrote this book, I feel as though he is pigeon holing every other source of information as not being credible or trustworthy.

Lippmann also makes an argument for our personal frame of reference, demographics and clear (or unclear) understanding of public opinion skews the way we see it – “These limitations upon our access to that environment combine with the obscurity and complexity of the fact themselves to thwart clearness and justice of perception, to substitute misleading fictions for workable ideas, and to deprive us of adequate checks upon those who consciously strive to mislead.” But why does Lippmann make the assumption that our personal frame of reference is always a negative thing? Couldn’t our personal experience influence another way of thinking and make the matter of public opinion more diverse? Is this not how politics work?

Underlying assumption
It seems as though Lippmann is trying to prove that the media is not the end all, be all for framing public opinion. The way we are raised, educated, where we live and even language barriers can greatly affect how we interpret public matters, and our own frame of reference can skew what we believe to be true. Basically I think he is saying that we shouldn’t always rely on the media to tell us what to think; we need to be able to discern fact from fiction ourselves.

Provocative questions
Lippmann describes how we can interpret messages differently based on how we phonetically understand the words, whether that is with a language barrier, different education level or so forth. Even today, that is still a matter of concern, mostly in places lacking in education resources. So I think the begs the question, what can we do as a society to create a clear message to everyone while still allowing the publics to form their own opinions?

Lippmann also explains how eyewitnesses to an event give their account but their accuracy is “unknown.” “The meaning has to be telescoped in such a way as to permit the reader to judge how much weight to give to the news.” This reminds me exactly of what we are seeing today in terms of citizen journalism and blogging. We’ve seen multiple instances of citizen journalists reporting incorrect facts. If we rely on ill-prepared or un-informed people to make one public opinion, how can we know if the source is credible and valid?

The Issue: The reading poses the question: if all words mean something different to each person than how can society come to agreement on what the media is saying and therefore how can there be one singular public opinion? I think Lippmann best summarizes it on page 44 by saying, “The world is vast, the situations that concern us are intricate, the messages are few, the biggest part of the opinion must be constructed in the imagination.”

Major Strength: A major strength of this reading is that Lippmann acknowledges stereotypes that divide men and women and students and professionals at the same time as finding common similarities between the groups and putting them all on the same level playing field. This can be seen in his explanation on page 40 where he says, “the tastes of business man and college students in big cities to-day still correspond more or less to the average judgments of newspaper editors in big cities twenty years ago.” Even though we are all human and part of the same society, Lippmann does a good job at explaining that our differences due to stereotypes or not make it difficult in asserting one correct public opinion.

Major Weakness: Lippmann has obviously given much thought to the idea that messages can be lost in translation either due to the diction chosen or lack of space in which they are presented (ex: through coded telegraph message). He explains that this limited space may provide room for a lack of truthfulness or accuracy however, he fails to talk about the opposing point of view – What if short and concise messages are more truthful and accurate because they have to compact all the necessary information into a little space and leave little room for embellishment and unnecessary fluff?

Underlying Assumption: I think a major underlying assumption is that the media always tells the fair and balanced version of the news and that they are complying with their duty as being the watchdogs of our country. As a society we give so much weight and importance to the media because what we read and see is what we consider our reality. However, if we all have different meanings for words and aren’t able to dissociate superficial analogies, differences, and varieties of lucidity of mind than we shouldn’t put so much power in the hands of a select few to tell us what to think.

Provocative Questions:
1) Lippmann talked about the telegram and the limited amount of space and truth someone could compact into a tiny message. This instantly made me think of the 140 character limit of Twitter – Twitter has become a powerful tool for disseminating information and spreading it through followers in attempts of gaining traction and awareness. However, if people are cautious to the truthfulness and accuracy of information packed into a limited space, how can we consider Twitter a legitimate and credible source for information?
2) On page 42 Lippmann stated, “there is no certainty whatever that the same word will call out exactly the same idea in the readers mind as it did in the reporter’s mind.” If this is true and words have different meanings for everyone than why do we put so much faith and trust into the media? How do we know that the reporters and media are trying to produce fair and balanced news and aren’t putting their own spin on it?

The issue: In Robert B. Cialdini’s book, Influence, he talks about the theory of Reciprocity and the many different aspects that make up the theory.

Major strength: Cialdini’s example about Joe Regan is his major strength in this section. This example is used multiple times throughout the chapter. He is able to connect it to many different aspects of this theory, which shows it is a true example of the theory in use. Regan was able to use reciprocity to gain money from others by offering them a coke before asking them to buy raffle tickets. Since so many people bought the raffle tickets after accepting the coke it shows that even though the exchange was uneven, people are more willing to give more after receiving a gift. It also shows that humans experience reciprocity when they are given a gift and feel the need to give something in return. Finally, this example dates back to 1960’s so it shows that reciprocity has been amongst us for many years and people have been finding ways to use it to gain more in return.

Major weakness: The weakness of his theory is the idea of reciprocation in politics. I believe that there is a lot of gift giving and favors given in politics, but I do not believe they are using the ideas of reciprocation when they give gifts. I believe that one could get crazy with this theory and find reciprocation in any example throughout a person’s life. Sometimes we give gifts and exchange favors but it is not because we know they will give us a gift back, but just because we want to. I believe that politicians exchange favors so that people will vote for one another and they have for many years but they are not acting on the theory of reciprocation.

Underlying assumption: The reciprocation theory shows us that humans will feel reciprocity when someone gives them a gift and feel the need to return the favor. Even if the person that gives us the gift is a complete stranger we will still send a gift in return. Cialdini shows us that people use this feeling against us when trying to get us to buy or do something. If someone offers us a gift we will give one back. Also, if someone offers us a gift that is outrageous and we turn them down we will accept their second offer because we feel bad for rejecting the first offer.

Provocative questions: Why does the theory of reciprocation work on human beings? Why is it then when we are given a gift we feel obligated to give it back? Why can’t we just accept the gift and move on? Why do we get that feeling of guilt when we experience this?

When is reciprocation learned? Do we learn it from our parents always telling us to be nice to others and thank people for gifts because they wont give them again? Or is this feeling learned as we grow up in society.