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?