social influence
Definition
Social influence refers to the processes by which individuals or groups alter the judgments, attitudes, or behaviors of others, operating through mechanisms that include assimilative pressure, repulsive divergence, and perceived social consensus. In group settings, these processes unfold over time and can be modeled empirically, as demonstrated through Boolean network analysis of self-disclosure behavior in therapy groups, where 16 of 18 groups exhibited both assimilative and repulsive influence simultaneously. Social cues such as likes and shares function as carriers of social influence in digital environments, increasing the perceived reliability and accuracy of misinformation even among individuals who have received inoculation interventions, with a third-person consensus effect leading participants to attribute greater susceptibility to others than to themselves. In AI agent contexts, conformity-like behavior consistent with Social Impact Theory emerges when models are exposed to group opinions in their prompts, with error rates varying as a function of majority size, source authority, group unanimity, and shared group membership.
Sources: Yang et al. (2024), Traberg et al. (2024), Bellina et al. (2026)
Related Terms
- group process (1 shared article)
- Boolean network (1 shared article)
- network control (1 shared article)
- dynamical system method (1 shared article)
- inoculation (1 shared article)
- misinformation (1 shared article)
- interventions (1 shared article)
- persuasion (1 shared article)
- AI agents (1 shared article)
- Conformity (1 shared article)
- Social Impact Theory (1 shared article)
- Multimodal language models (1 shared article)
Applications
Social Influence and Misinformation Susceptibility
Persuasive social cues, operationalized as fabricated likes and shares, increase the perceived reliability and perceived accuracy of misinformation, with effect sizes of d = 0.44 and d = 0.38 respectively in a sample of 755 UK-based participants. An emotion-fallacy inoculation reduces susceptibility to misinformation but does not eliminate the persuasive boost conferred by social endorsement, indicating that social influence operates independently of pre-emptive cognitive interventions.
Sources: Traberg et al. (2024)
Social Influence and Conformity Bias in AI Agents
Multimodal language models that achieve near-perfect accuracy in isolation become highly susceptible to social influence when group opinions appear in their prompts, with median error rates reaching 66% across twelve open-source models. The strength of this conformity bias is modulated by source characteristics: labeling confederates as experts raised the bias by up to 0.13, while labeling them as chatbots or children lowered it, and shared group membership increased conformity across all 32 model-task combinations tested.
Sources: Bellina et al. (2026)
Social Influence and Behavior Change in Groups
Social influence drives behavior change in group members through both assimilative processes, where individuals adopt their peers' behaviors, and repulsive processes, where individuals move away from them. Boolean network modeling applied to longitudinal self-disclosure data from 18 therapy groups identified group-specific control strategies capable of directing the majority of members toward desired behavioral states, demonstrating that social influence can be systematically managed without altering the underlying social ties.
Sources: Yang et al. (2024)
