Social influence

St. Paul defends his preaching (Giovanni Ricco).

The Apostle Paul taught: "Do not be deceived:‘Bad company ruins good morals.’" (1 Corinthians 15:33).

According to ScienceDirect and the International Encyclopedia of Education: "Social influence refers to the phenomenon where an individual's behaviors, opinions, or beliefs change as a result of their network ties, often becoming more similar to those with whom they are connected." The Royal Society indicates: "Social learning is fundamental to human development, helping individuals adapt to changing circumstances and cooperate in groups. During the formative years of adolescence, the social environment shapes people's socio-cognitive skills needed in adulthood."

The abstract for the book chapter Sociology of Social Influence from the 2015 book Behavior Sciences states:

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Social influence involves intentional and unintentional efforts to change another person's beliefs, attitudes, or behavior. Unlike persuasion, which is typically intentional and requires some degree of awareness on the part of the target, social influence may be inadvertent or accidental. Social influence often operates via peripheral processing. Hence, the target may be unaware of the influence attempt. Unlike compliance gaining, which is usually goal directed, social influence is often nongoal directed and the outcomes may be inconsistent with, or unrelated to, a communicator's goals. Social influence encompasses such strategies as indebtedness or reciprocity, commitment, social proof, liking and attractiveness, authority, and scarcity.

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Social influence and Christianity

The Apostle Paul taught: "Do not be deceived:‘Bad company ruins good morals.’" (1 Corinthians 15:33).

Positive social influence and developing more positive thinking

See also: Positive thinking and Self-talk

According to the Mayo Clinic, surrounding yourself with positive people helps foster positive thinking.

Making one's self-talk employ more positive thinking and employing more constructive/realistic/problem solving/creative thinking is better for one's physical/mental health and increases one's performance at tasks.

According to the Mayo Clinic, "Positive thinking just means that you approach unpleasantness in a more positive and productive way. You think the best is going to happen, not the worst."

Social influence and adoloscents

An abstract of a chapter of the 2018 book Advances in Child Development and Behavior by Eva H. Telzer, Jorien van Hoorn, Christina R. Rogers and Kathy T. Do indicates:

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Susceptibility to social influence is associated with a host of negative outcomes during adolescence. However, emerging evidence implicates the role of peers and parents in adolescents’ positive and adaptive adjustment. Hence, in this chapter we highlight social influence as an opportunity for promoting social adjustment, which can redirect negative trajectories and help adolescents thrive. We discuss influential models about the processes underlying social influence, with a particular emphasis on internalizing social norms, embedded in social learning and social identity theory. We link this behavioral work to developmental social neuroscience research, rooted in neurobiological models of decision making and social cognition. Work from this perspective suggests that the adolescent brain is highly malleable and particularly oriented toward the social world, which may account for heightened susceptibility to social influences during this developmental period. This chapter underscores the need to leverage social influences during adolescence, even beyond the family and peer context, to promote positive developmental outcomes. By further probing the underlying neural mechanisms as an additional layer to examining social influence on positive youth development, we will be able to gain traction on our understanding of this complex phenomenon.

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Journal and academic articles

• Positive Social Norms: Research Review, University of Minnesota

• Following the Majority: Social Influence in Trusting Behavior, Frontiers in Science, 2019