22.3: Social Influences on Cognition
- Page ID
- 95227
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There are many ways in which other people influence our own behavior and attitudes. Many of them involve one or more of the following:
Socialization
We acquire many of our most fundamental beliefs, attitudes, and values in the very process of growing up.
Experts
We constantly rely on the views and advice of experts, including teachers, textbooks, and much of the mass media. We have examined the role of experts in detail in an earlier chapter, so we won’t discuss it here.
Mere Presence
Our performance on cognitive tasks is affected by the mere presence of others; even as a passive audience can influence how well we do.
Persuasion Professions
We are targets of people in the “persuasion professions” (advertising agents, lobbyists, politicians, social reformers), who are constantly trying to influence how we think.
Conformity
We are very strongly influenced by the views and actions of our peers (or members of groups we admire).
Obedience
We are all more susceptible to the views and commands of those in authority than we would suppose.
Most of these influences can be useful, and none of them are intrinsically bad. We often must rely on the views of experts; our society wouldn’t do well without rules and authorities with the power to enforce them (though perhaps some of the specific rules are flawed). Sometimes these things only influence our actions, but often they influence our thoughts, attitudes and beliefs (frequently without our even realizing it). In the rest of this chapter, we will examine some of the ways in which these influences operate, and we will devise some safeguards to diminish their power over us.