Definition
Social proof can
be defined as "Youe may determine what is correct by finding out what
other people think is correct.” It can also be defined as: ”Making
assumptions from the actions of others by trying to reflect correct
behavior in a given situation.”
It is everywhere
Social proof can
be found anywhere. Humans have inner needs to stay connected with
others. Without these needs human race would probably be extinct. We
have mirror neurons. They are constantly following behavior of other
people. They are essential for your ability to imitate others. They
help you to learn from others too. You only need two persons to have
social proof. You need a source of impulse and the receiver.
Everybody observing an event is likely to be looking for social
evidence. There is safety in numbers. The more people are behaving
like others, the more social proof there is for the receiver of
impulses. It is probable that bigger groups of people are reacting to
social proof itself. They have created a self-reinforcing feedback loop which strengthens the effects. Social proof is not consisted of
only impulses people receive, it also involves ignoring them.
Our networks
and social proof
Social proof can
be divided into two different components. The influence of the people who
are some way connected pretty close to you and the influence of the
people without connection to you. The latter people just happen to be
in the situation where they have influence into your behavior. The
simplest social network is two people connected to each other. You
have many networks. You can also think these networks as a one big
network.
People in this
network has strong and weak connections. Normally, stronger
connections belong to people who are close to each other. For
example, close relatives, or people working together, etc. In the
modern world, everyone has weak ties for most people. Some
networking experts talk about six degrees of connections are enough
to connect anyone in the world to any other person. Besides
connections, social networks have another fundamental aspect,
contagion. It tells you what, if anything, flows through these
connections. Each of these flows have individual characteristics. You
have to understand at least some of the rules of connection and
contagion.
You can choose the
structure of your network in three ways. First, you decide how many
people you are connected to intimately. Second, you decide how
tightly these people are interconnected. And, third, you control how
central is your position in the network. You have your most intimate
network. Contagion is the strongest in it. Things flowing through
your connections are also important. Contagion happens, because
people have tendency to copy each other as a definition of social
proof states. You do not copy only your friends. You also copy your
friends´ friends and their friends´friends. The influence of your
network to you diminishes gradually until third degree of connection.
Then it vanishes.
Conditions for
groups being right
Most often it is
enough to follow the herd. You will not get into trouble by finding out
what others are doing and just copying others. If you want to get
maximum value out of social proof, you need to understand, when
groups of people are very intelligent. It comes to four conditions.
First, each person in the group should have some private information.
Second, their opinions are not determined by others around them.
Third, each person is able to specialize and have local and
unattached knowledge. And, finally, there is a way to turn individual
judgments into a collective decision.
First condition is
about diversity. There should be different kinds of people in the
group, like old and young, black and white, or smart and stupid. You
need different perspectives. They take away or at least weaken some
of the worst characteristics of group decisions. Some biased
individuals can otherwise move decisions from the collective power
into the direction of the significant few with lots of influence. The
probability of a homogenous group reaching into a good decision is
low. Diversity do not only add different perspectives, it also helps
people to say what they really think.
When all people in the group rely on private information and are able to
include their intuition, interpretation and analysis to the decision
making, a good outcome is likely. There are two reasons why they are important. First, mistakes that people make during the process do not
become correlated. Second, new information are more likely found. The
more influence the people have on each other, the more likely they
make the same mistakes.
Local and
unattached knowledge means also decentralized power structures. Many
important decisions are made by individuals based on their local and
unattached specific knowledge. Central planners are not effective as sole decision makers. Decentralization encourages individuals to
work the same problem by their own means and ways of doing things.
This way individuals can specialize and find local knowledge. They
can transform their private efforts into the help of a collective
whole.
Decentralized
system works only, when it can produce results by having means of
aggregating everybody´s knowledge into the system. A group needs to
find the right balance between necessities: making individuals
collectively useful while allowing them to stay specialized and
local. A good group decision requires people to take into account
what others are doing. When all these four conditions apply, you
should definitely follow the herd. To be honest, it is really hard to
know, when all these conditions are actualized.
How to avoid social proof
Sometimes you need
to protect yourself from social proof. These situations are less
likely than others. When you are stressed of puzzled, you will more
likely be influenced by the social proof. Avoiding disreputable sells
organizations or people who are willing to increase your stress
levels by giving you a fast deadline to make a decision helps you to
diminish the effect of social proof. Avoid also other people who you
know are willing to push your limits by asking you to behave in ways
you do not want to. In other words, avoid all the people you
associate with bad behavior. You should also avoid unnecesessary
marketing impulses that you can relate to social proof like ads with
groups of people having a good time or ads that have words like
”fastest-growing” or ”most popular”.
Sources:
Have a nice end of
the week!
-TT
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