1. Social influence and cultural emergence

2. General information
What is the difference between social influence and persuasion?
Conformity vs. compliance vs. obedience
Sherif, Asch, and Milgram classic studies
What made for more conformity/obedience in these?
Informational vs. normative influence

3. Cialdini’s techniques
Influence
Six techniques
Reciprocity
Social validation (social comparison theory)
Consistency (cognitive dissonance theory)
Liking
Scarcity (reactance theory)
Authority
Examples? Examples not in sales?

4. Evolution and Influence
How could these be evolutionary? What does adding that give us?
Goals
Relationships
Coalition formation, status, self-protection, mate selection, mate retention, parental care
What techniques would be more or less effective for the above goals? For strangers vs. children vs. partners?

5. Social norms and influence
Deviance regulation theory (Blanton & Christie, 2003)
What does it predict?
How does this relate to influence?
Social identity theory (Abrams & Hogg, 1990)
Focus theory of normative conduct (Cialdini, Kallgren, & Reno, 1991)
Injunctive vs. descriptive norms
Attention

6. Focus theory Examples of effective vs. ineffective campaigns?
What should we do to make people more aware of climate change or get them to take action (e.g., drive less), according to this approach?
What does this approach suggest about social norms marketing campaigns/pluralistic ignorance?
Avoid the stork

7. Cultural emergence
What is culture according to DSIT? According to Norenzayan et al.?
Culture vs. evolution
How does evolution relate to culture?
Bottom up vs. top down
Other research: memes, elements of cultures that are most likely to be passed on, what happens as they get passed on?

8. Dynamic social impact theory (Latane, 1990)
What are the 3 factors?
What does it mean to have a multiplicative function? A marginally decreasing effect?
Catastrophe theory of attitudes (Latane & Nowak, 1994)
Involving vs. uninvolving attitudes
DSIT
What are the 4 C’s of culture? What do each of them mean?
What types of studies have shown support for DSIT?
Other examples?

9. DSIT continued How does modernization affect DSIT predictions?
How do individual differences fit in?
What new directions are there to be tested with DSIT?
Are all the assumptions of DSIT supported?
Are there other explanations for the DSIT study results?
Are there other problems with this approach?
Is it consistent with evolutionary approaches?

10. Evolution and culture (Norenzayan, Schaller, & Heine, 2006)
“New look” evolutionary psych
How do evolved capacities make culture possible?
How can biological evolution and social communication work together to create culture?
What “moral norms” may have evolved and why? Ingroup/outgroup? Religion? Cultural artifacts? Myths?
What types of things are more likely to be passed on and why?

11. Cultural evolution
What are universals and what do they tell us? Importance of levels of specificity in universals. Importance of looking at cultural variation
TMT, sociometer
Racial prejudice
Gender differences
4 degrees of universality
Non-universal
Existential universal
Functional universal
Accessibility universal
Examples?

12. Why might psychological phenomena be universal or not across cultures?
Does universal mean “innate”?

13. Infectious diseases and culture
More value placed on physical attractiveness in a mate (Gangestad & Buss, 1993)
Lower mean levels of sociosexuality, extraversion, and openness to experience, but do not differ on other personality variables (e.g., conscientiousness) (Schaller & Murray, 2008)
Fewer political/social rights (Thornhill, Fincher, & Aran, 2009)
More religious (Fincher & Thornhill, 2008)
More collectivist. (Fincher, Thornhill, Murray, & Schaller, 2009)

14. Other factors Concern for optimal social exchange
Tom’s thesis on disabled persons
What things are more likely to be passed on?
Boyd & Richerson, 1985
Sperber, 1996
Chip Heath’s research
Memorability
Surprise
Emotions (esp. disgust)
Ease of communication
Push for novelty
Establishment of social identity
Cultural exchange

15. Religion All known societies have
Belief in supernatural agents
Who demand public expressions of commitment
And who manage fears of death, meaningless, and hopelessness
Minimally counterintuitive stories and concepts are better remembered and spread
Ghosts beat zombies
Why would religion evolve?
Is it culture or biology?
Individual cog tendencies for agency, or commitment to group
Atran, Norenzayan

16. Next week
Groups
Paper ideas!