The Impact of Social Proof: A Personal Narrative

530 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Importance of peer pressure

Social Proof Social proof is a persuasive theory that applies to many of us even when we don’t realize it. This strategy is the idea that humans are fearful of isolation and alienation. Our brain is programmed to detect popular trends set by others. The story in my life comes from my early grade school years. Our class played this game outside at recess where we ran a little town. We dug holes, built things and opened small little stores. This was all kids play and we were just having the greatest time of our life. We would also trade items such as marbles and gems as our source of money. The most popular item to trade were foohy erasers. They were monkey shaped erasers for your pencils that were scented. These were the most desired thing …show more content…

This is a strategy that states that our reason and logic is not enough for us to think and act correctly. When something is involved, it seems to make us think more correctly. My example comes from when I was just a little boy. The thing I hated most growing up was brushing my teeth because I just thought it really hurt. It was the year 2008 and my favorite movie was Shrek. It was the first time I had ever seen it. There is a song in the movie called All Star by Smash Mouth. There was a very popular brand of tooth brush out at the time called Tooth Tunes. These were tooth brushes that would play music while you brushed your teeth. My mom found one at a store and the song it played was All Star by Smash Mouth. I was literally brushing my teeth 5-6 times a day just so I could hear my favorite song being played. My mom never had to worry about me not brushing my teeth again because she just knew how much I really loved this thing. This story applies to the fun theory because it implemented fun into something I really did not like to do. I now wanted to brush my teeth instead of not doing so because it hurt. The fun applied to brushing my teeth now made it something enjoyable for

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Unresisted Persuasion

    703 Words  | 2 Pages

    Summary – It can be very useful when things do not tend to fall your way by then switching things up on your opponent and using their most positive words in order to make it look negative. Every argument needs facts and if that does not work for you, you should probably redefine the issue being made. The importance and relevance of the argument should be taken into consideration. Remember that manipulating the definition of things in your favor is the way to go.

    Read More

  • Into The Wild Persuasive Analysis

    1053 Words  | 3 Pages

    The strange life and death of Christopher McCandless is an enigma. After disappearing for 2 years, McCandless was found dead at age twenty-four in the Alaskan wilderness, the world stunned on why an affluent young man with a bright future would give it all up to live in seclusion in the wilderness. In his book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer theorizes the motivations of McCandless and why a seemingly sane person would take such dangerous risks. Krakauer’s major theories of why McCandless did what he did revolve around a singular idea: freedom. Krakauer uses McCandless’s change of identity and wilderness adventures to symbolize freedom and self-expression.

    Read More

  • Emulation of Human Behavior

    1361 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hirshleifer, David. “The Blind Leading the Blind: Social Influence, Fads, and Informational Cascades” The New Economics of Human Behaviour. Eds. Ierulli, K. and Tommasi M.. California: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

    Read More

  • False Consensus Effect

    1975 Words  | 4 Pages

    The astute reader may notice that this review does not include any papers that did not find a false consensus effect. The reason for this is not that this paper is not representative of the literature, but rather, that it is. The uniformity of the literature suggests that the phenomenon is fairly common. Some interesting arguments as to why this is are motivational or cognitive in nature. The motivational premise is based in the idea that people are motivated to believe that they have a place in their social environment. This argument is a based in self-justification, in that if many people share a given belief or behavior, it makes it easier to justify that this attitude or behavior is either right, or not as bad as it might seem.

    Read More

  • Ethical Principles of Persuasion: An Analysis

    1131 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to Merriam Webster, the term “ethical” can be defined as “rules of behavior based on ideas about what is morally good and bad.” Being able to differentiate between what is good, and what is bad is key when it comes to many things. One of these things includes persuasion. There are many concepts that can explain why certain principles of persuasion can be more ethical than others, and many that are critical to being an ethical communicator. Said concepts are explained in Rothwell’s text, In the Company of Others, Robert Cialdini and Steve Martins video, Science of Persuasion, and Stephen Carter’s text, Integrity.

    Read More

  • The Persuasive Text

    835 Words  | 2 Pages

    The purpose of a persuasive text is to change or alter the viewpoint of the reader for it to agree with the author’s perspective. The intention of this specific text is to persuade the reader to help end poverty today by joining ‘Make Poverty History’ and it uses persuasive language and techniques to do this – this essay will explain the effect on the reader and will focus on analysing persuasive language.

    Read More

  • Applying Social Cognitive Theory in Teaching English

    901 Words  | 2 Pages

    Social cognitive theory (SCT) involves four key components: reciprocal interaction, enacting learning, vicarious learning, and modeling. Despite Ann, the English teacher in the video, may not know what SCT is, she does apply the theory to her teaching strategy.

    Read More

  • Social Psychology Theory

    902 Words  | 2 Pages

    The central concepts following social psychology is that which dares to explain what makes people do what they do. Social psychology is the scientific analysis of how someone influences another’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Though considered to be a fairly young science, social psychology has endeavored to examine particular theories, concepts, and phenomenon that has shaped our society. As the centuries roll on, technology alongside social media, has evolved into something more sophisticated and has developed into a mechanism in which to entice and challenge social norms.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Social Psychology In Heathers

    1490 Words  | 3 Pages

    The most basic concept in social psychology is conformity. Conformity is the idea that behaviour or a belief is changed in order to follow, or conform, to what is considered the “norm.” One of the oldest experiments to support this notion was conducted in 1935 by Muzafer Sherif (Song, Ma, Wu, Li, 2012 p. 1366). There are two different types of

    Read More

  • Keller’s Theory vs. Wlodkowski’s Theory: Comparison and Contrast

    1763 Words  | 4 Pages

    The use of humor is very effective in gaining attention, but, not too much because it can be distracting from the topic being taught.... ... middle of paper ... ... Wlodkowski’s theory is also extremely emerging in the intrinsic motivation concept, but Keller’s theory is inclusive of both the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation concepts.

    Read More

  • The Principle of Persuasion

    1297 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to the text , Social Psychology, “social psychology is the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another”(pg. 4) this is viewed in a variety of social topics incorporating group behaviors, attitudes, conformity, obedience to authority, stereotypes and peer pressure. Outside factors can have a positive or negative affect our view of ourselves and each other. These outside factors are used to persuade and influence group behavior. Persuasion is defined as “the process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors” (Myers, 2010, pg. 230). The principles of this process of persuasion according to researchers, Robert Cialdini and Thomas Davidson, are attractiveness and likeability, reciprocity, social proof, consistency, authority, and scarcity (Davidson, 2008)(Myers, 2010, pg. 237). These principles of persuasion impact our self-perception, our attitudes and behaviors, and our culture.

    Read More

  • Social Psychology of Persuasion

    1126 Words  | 3 Pages

    Every day in our life's we are persuaded to make choices. Persuasion is a very

    Read More

  • 6 Principles Of Persuasion Essay

    896 Words  | 2 Pages

    Finally, the liking principle is one that will often be used in the art of persuasion. This can be used effectively, where a product can be seen as “likable” if for example it has been endorsed by someone perceived to be physically attractive or perhaps someone that demonstratives the behaviors of a friend, such as showing similar traits or someone that can be related to.

    Read More

  • Majority or Minority Influence

    650 Words  | 2 Pages

    This essay concerns social influence in general. Aspects of social influence as such as majority influence and minority influence will be discussed in terms of their underlying psychological processes and how they differ. Majority influence or conformity refers to the desire to belong or to fit in within a particular group which involves adopting certain attributes, behaviour and attitudes of a particular group. As a result individuals consequently experience group pressure (in Baron, Branscombe & Byrne 2008). Minority influence on the other hand, refers to the influence that the minority exert over the majority in that the majority come to accept the beliefs and behaviours of a minority (in Baron et al. 2008).

    Read More

  • Influence The Psychology Of Persuasion Summary

    1690 Words  | 4 Pages

    The book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini illustrates the implementation of reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. The book identifies these six principles as weapons of influence in aiding with persuasion. The following explains and applies each principle.

    Read More

More about The Impact of Social Proof: A Personal Narrative

Open Document