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Social Influence Experiments

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Someone is scrolling through Instagram and stops on a picture. The picture is of a girl, wearing a jean jacket. The person then feels the need to get a jean jacket; this is a social influence. Through studies and experiments, we can conclude whether or not social influence is bad.
Why do we as a society feel the need to be accepted and/or ‘fit in’?
In an experiment documented by Sasha Alo, a man walks onto an elevator and faces the doors, while everyone else faces the back. The man then proceeds to slowly turn around and face the back. All the other people in the video turn out to be actors and that man turns out to be a random person who just happened to walk into this elevator and unknowingly is apart of a social experiment. The man felt as though he needed to fit in with everyone else in the elevator. He felt the urge/need to be accepted in his own way.
In Kathleen Yale’s article, she discusses different social influence experiments.
Stanley Milgram’s gathered 40 men for an experiment. He wanted to test whether or not they would shock a stranger just because he told them …show more content…
No one knows why, but a “baboon troop…. For an entire week… all starring in exactly the same direction.”(Waal) The only thing that they know is that social influence played a big role in this event and that in this case, it was dangerous. The baboons did not eat or drink for about a week. Apes, just like the baboons copy each other, for example, apes “learn from others, apes need to see actual fellow apes…. The body produces internal sensations and communicates with other bodies.”(Waal). Social influence can be innocent and sweet for example, “when parents make chewing mouth movements while spoon-feeding their baby. They can’t help but the act the way they feel their baby ought to.” proving(Waal). Social influence isn’t the only portrayed by humans, but in other species

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