The Psychology of Social Influence Modes and Modalities of Shifting Common Sense

This volume brings together the full range of modalities of social influence - from crowding, leadership, and norm formation to resistance and mass mediation - to set out a challenge-and-response 'cyclone' model. The authors use real-world examples to ground this model and review each modality of social influence in depth. A 'periodic table of social influence' is constructed that characterises and compares exercises of influence in practical terms. The wider implications of social influence are considered, such as how each exercise of a single modality stimulates responses from other modalities and how any everyday process is likely to arise from a mix of influences. The book demonstrates that different modalities of social influence are tactics that defend, question, and develop 'common sense' over time and offers advice to those studying in political and social movements, social change, and management.

1. Modalities of social influence: preconditions (public sphere) and demarcations (non-violence); Part I. Eternal Resources of Populism: 2. Crowding: contagion and imitation; 3. Leading: directors, dictators and dudes; Part II. Experimental paradigms: 4. Norming and frames of reference; 5. Conforming and converting; 6. Obeying: authority and compliance; 7. Persuading and convincing; Part III. Necessary Extensions: 8. Agenda setting, framing and mass mediation; 9. Designing and resisting artefacts; Part IV. Theoretical Integration: 10. Common sense: normalisation, assimilation and accommodation; 11. Epilogue: theoretical excursions and challenges; References; Index.

Gordon Sammut is Associate Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Malta. He has served as the Chief Editor for Methods of Psychological Intervention, The Cambridge Handbook of Social Representations, and Understanding Self and Others.
Martin W. Bauer is Professor of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics and a member of Acatech (German Academy of Technical Sciences). He is the former Editor of Public Understanding of Science and investigates common sense, public opinion, and attitudes to novel technological developments.