Social Influence: The Flaws of Mankind

Yathushan Anush 

The main reason that you have clicked on my article is to find out what I mean by social influence. Well, I could  give you the long complex definition... but I won’t. Social influence is essentially when a person's emotions, opinions or behaviours are affected by others.  

Psychology focuses on your mind and your behaviour. You are probably thinking, “Isn’t that just science?” My answer to you is yes and no. Psychology can be argued to be a science because certain connections are made between chemicals within the brain and body. However, pyschology is also about the way that we live and how that may differ between individuals. It explains why you are  different to Donald Trump and how Cardi B’s presence has a different impact on the public than perhaps Mother Teresa's (apart from the obvious reason that one is a saint and the other is well… Cardi B).

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There is a documentary that has recently been added to Netflix called ‘Derren Brown - The Push’ (please only watch the documentary, if you are 16+ or have your parent's permission), which is based on the concept of social influence. For those of you who haven’t heard of Derren Brown, he is a *psychological magician* (AKA an illusionist), who performs shocking acts that highlight the downfall of human civilisation. In this documentary, Derren Brown finds out whether a person could be manipulated into physically pushing someone else off of a roof, causing them to fall to their death (DUN DUN DUN). To do this, he has constructed a fake gala that consists of over 70 actors playing different roles in a cleverly organised scenario. The only person who is legitimate in this experiment is Chris (the victim of the experiment). Chris arrives at the gala in order to meet a ‘business client’ but upon his arrival, he stumbles upon a problem that keeps on arising. In the end, he has to decide if he wants to go to prison or murder someone by pushing them off of a building. This idea revolves around social influence; the concept of a change in a one’s behaviour and a desire to fit into a particular society.

Social influence can be explored through many scenarios. For example, you may want to join the popular girl's group in school but they might not accept you due to factors such as your personality and behaviour. You then outwardly change your opinions and habits (ie. if someone in the group cracks a TERRIBLE joke and everyone laughs, you join in). 

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Why would you do that? Psychology explains that these changes are due to a human’s internal desire of wanting to be socially accepted. This transformation may be permanent (internalisation) or temporary (identification/compliance). 

In Derren Brown’s experiment, everyone with a higher status agreed that pushing someone else off of the roof in that circumstance would be acceptable, even though they are consciously aware that it is a crime. Psychology teaches us that we are all prey trying to escape the predators that lie internally within our minds and externally in this world. These predators may have a huge impact on people's’ lives  (depression, OCD, phobias etc), or they may be more moderate yet hopelessly inescapable. 

Welcome to the flaws of mankind.