Week 4brb The Social-Psychological Perspective – How do Other People Influence Opinions? By Bozena Fesiukaite and Chloe Mingay

Networks in Context: The Social Flow of Political Information Huckfeldt and Sprague (1997) Individual preferences and their distribution Distinctive interpretations of political events What is Social behavior? How do people choose information? – Preferences – Availability – Associations – Individual preferences and preferences of associates

Minimizing impact of social influence Awareness and difference of preferences – Misrepresentation – Lack of communication – Making the preferences ambiguous Minority/majority Socially transmitted political information  individually based political preferences

“It is a gross simplification to assume that individually defined interests translate directly into individual preferences.. for preferences must be informed, and information arrives though socially structured channels”. “The nationalization of political-information sources achieved through the disappearance of multiple-newspaper cities and the dominance of television may very well enhance the coercive power informationally biased social contexts”.

So… Information networks come from individual political preferences Selective misperception Individual control over socially supplied information is partial and incomplete  favors political majorities and undermines political minorities

Social Capital, Social Networks, and Political Participation La Due Lake and Huckfeldt (1998) Irrationality of political participation? – Political capital  political engagement What is Social Capital? – Politically relevant social capital f(PRSC)=political expertise + frequency of political interactions + size of the network Positive relationship

Human capital  organizational activity  production of social capital (??) Human capital: – Education? – Income? – Employment? – Age? – Belonging to minority? Result: Education (+) across all three dimensions of politically relevant social capital – These results are sustained even while taking account of a person’s individual characteristics and organizational involvement

Education  participation Exposure to other people who also have higher levels of education Human capital & politically relevant social capital  correlation Production of politically relevant social capital occurs apart from the influence of joining membership organizations

So.. Political participation increases with: 1) political expertise 2) frequency of political interaction within the network 3) size on network !! Even if we accept the importance of individually defined motivation, ignoring social capital may very well misspecify the political consequences of human capital.

Neighborhood Information Exchange and Voter Participation Grosser and Schram Designed a laboratory experiment to investigate the effect of social networks on voter participation Hypothesis based on information exchange within neighborhood networks Experiment designed to measure the influence of social networks Results: – Individuals are more likely to vote when others around them vote – The effect is stronger when those around them are allies

The Spiral of Silence Neumann Election results often differ from polls that ask people how they voted – Idea of backing a winner? – Idea of social isolation Fear of isolation is greater than the fear of error – Line test experiment “Our social nature causes us to fear separation an isolation from our fellows and to want to be respected and liked by them” Fear of isolation is opposed to the values of freedom, fortitude and individuality

The Spiral of Silence Neumann How does our fear of isolation affect our political behavior? – The Spiral of Silence It is hard to say no and argue but it is easy to stay silent The Train Test is an experiment used to measure people’s willingness to speak up on controversial issues More vocal sides are perceived to be stronger, even if real numbers are very similar The result: A prevailing opinion/ ideology emerges

The Spiral of Silence Neumann Fears beyond isolation: – Tire Slash Test “Opinions on controversial issues that one can express in public without isolating oneself”

Impersonal Influence Mutz Changing nature of our reality Our knowledge about the world no longer come from direct human experience People’s opinions are not likely to change however perception of public opinion varies hugely over time Perceptions of public opinion and of society vary greatly from what personal experience tells us

Impersonal Influence Mutz The “Generalised Other” Facilitated by the growth of mass media and the rised of impersonal relationships Impersonal influence is distinct from social influence