Persuading Yourself to be Persuaded by Others

Humans are social animals. It's a cliché. Less known, however, is that people tend to underestimate how much they are influenced by social norms. So, on the one hand, people are social. On the other, people like to view themselves as independent. This might explain why trying to change people's behavior by telling them what other people do sometimes fails to change behaviors.

In general, social norm-based persuasion techniques have been shown to often result in behavioral change. Examples would be learning that your neighbors are saving more energy than you, that more and more people are choosing a vegetarian lunch, or that your colleague peers are not drinking as much alcohol as you might think. Although other people's behaviors could serve as useful social compasses for what is approved or effective, people sometimes react negatively when being informed about other people's behaviors. Maybe because people perceive that someone is trying to persuade them. To avoid this problem, my colleague Emma Ejelöv and I set out to test if people can persuade themselves to be persuaded by others.

Liking My Own Ideas Better than Yours

Most people like to view themselves as autonomous, making their own decisions. This may be why people like a product more after being involved in producing it—which (to my satisfaction as a Swede) is called the "IKEA effect." From a psychological perspective, this tendency reflects the classical theory of cognitive dissonance. People will perceive psychological discomfort when holding two inconsistent beliefs or behaviors. Not practicing what you preach makes you feel like a hypocrite, which in turn motivates you to change either your behavior or what you preach. Or, spending hours assembling your IKEA desk results in more liking because you need to justify the effort.

Self-Persuading Norm

At this point, we know that people tend to be less influenced by social norms because people don't want to view themselves as being influenced by others. We also know that people tend to be influenced by their own actions or arguments. Then, would people be more influenced by social norms if they are given the opportunity to provide their own argument supporting other people's behaviors? In our studies, Emma Ejelöv and I set out to test this notion, which we called the "self-persuading norm."

Our research was straightforward. Participants who were recruited online could choose between pairs of products to buy. In the first two studies, the products were identical apart from the color of the packages, and participants were put into one of three groups. One group could choose between the products without any other information. Those in the second group learned that most other participants choose one of the two products and were then asked to choose between the products (hence, they were presented with a social norm). Finally, those in the third group were given the exact same normative information as the second group, but with an important difference. Before choosing between the products, participants were asked "What do you think, why did most other people choose this product?" Participants provided all kinds of, more or less creative, answers. For example, that the product other people chose seemed to be the "standard choice," "a fresher choice," or "a more environmentally friendly choice." But that is not our main interest. Our main interest is what people in the third group thought about their own explanations for other people's choices. It turned out that 84% thought that their own explanation for other people's choices was a good explanation. And the consequence? Just like loving your IKEA table a little bit more after building it, people were more influenced by others' choices after describing why other people made a good choice.

We call this the self-persuading norm, as it paints a picture of how people persuade themselves to be more persuaded by others.

For Further Reading

Bergquist, M., & Ejelöv, E. (2022). Self-persuading norms: Adding a self-persuading technique strengthens the influence of descriptive social norms. Social Influence, 17(1), 1 – 16. DOI: 10.1080/15534510.2022.2047776

Bergquist, M., Nilsson, A., & Schultz, P. W. (2019). A meta-analysis of field experiments using social norms to promote pro-environmental behaviors. Global Environmental Change, 59, 101941. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.101941

Constantino, S. M., Sparkman, G., Kraft-Todd, G. T., Bicchieri, C., Centola, D., Shell-Duncan, B., Vogt, S., & Weber, E. U. (2022). Scaling up change: A critical review and practical guide to harnessing social norms for climate action. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 23(2) 50–97. DOI: 10.1177/15291006221105279

Schultz, P. W. (2022). Secret agents of influence: Leveraging social norms for good. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 31(5), 443-450. DOI: 10.1177/09637214221109572

Magnus Bergquist is an Associate Professor in Psychology at the Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg. Bergquist's research is largely focused on social influence techniques, but also applied environmental psychology assessing when and why interventions promote pro-environmental behavioral change, why people (don't) support environmental policies, and how people judge environmentally related risks.