Chapter 9 - Persuasion and Compliance in Cyberspace
Chapter Summary
What is social influence?
- Defines the term ‘social influence’ and lists out the two different types of social influence. Three different processes of social influence are identified: compliance, obedience and conformity.
Compliance
- Compliance is defined and Cialdini’s six principles are mentioned and described.
- The foot in the door technique is defined and explained using an online example.
- The door in the face technique is explained using an online example.
Obedience
- This is defined and linked to the principle of authority.
- The electric shock experiment originally carried out by Stanley Milgram in 1963 is described using both the online and offline environments.
Conformity
- Conformity is defined and the original experiments by Solomon Asch in 1953 are described.
- The concept of cyber-conformity is introduced and experiments by Cinirella and Green in 2007 are discussed.
- Why do we conform?
Persuasion
- What is persuasion?
- Some models of persuasion are described such as the Yale model of persuasive communication which looks at the characteristics of the source, characteristics of the message and characteristics of the audience.
- Research from CMC and the Yale model by Wilson (2005) are described.
- The Elaboration Likelihood Model is detailed with the central and peripheral routes described.
- The Need for Cognition is the tendency to engage with information and was first described by Cacioppo and Petty in 1982.
- Research into how the need for cognition affects how we behave online is described.
Captology
- This is the field which looks at the use of persuasive technologies.
- It was pioneered by B. F. Fogg and the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab.
Further Reading
This paper by Fogg describes the design principles behind creating persuasive technologies.
- Fogg, B. J. (2009, April). Creating persuasive technologies: An eight-step design process. In Persuasive ’09: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology (Article No. 44). ACM.
This paper by Knowles et al. looks at the difference between persuasion and manipulation as tools used in persuasive technologies. It also introduces the BARTER system in a case study which is designed to get people to spend locally using persuasive technologies.
- Knowles, B., Coulton, P., Lochrie, M. & Wohl, B. (2014, February). “Convince Us”: An Argument for the Morality of Persuasion. Paper presented at the 17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computer (CSCW’14 Workshop) ACM, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
This chapter by Hamari et al. is an empirical review of the research using persuasive technologies (95 in total) and categorises them from positive to negative in terms of the impact of the technologies.
- Hamari, J., Koivisto, J. & Pakkanen, T. (2014). Do persuasive technologies persuade? – A review of empirical studies. In A. Spagnolli, L. Chittaro & L. Gamberini, L. (eds), Persuasive Technology: 9th International Conference, Persuasive 2014: LNCS 8462, Proceedings (pp. 118–136). Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
Video links
Short video on the power and ‘secret sauce’ of Facebook by B. J. Fogg.
One of the applications of online social influence is online activism and in this TED Talk, Zeynep Tufekci looks at why it may be easy to start an online cause but more difficult to sustain it.
Another TED Talk by Eli Pariser focuses on what would occur if all the online information we are exposed to was designed and sourced to our tastes, and discusses the consequences of tailoring.
Useful websites
This website is from Steve Booth Butterfield who is a prominent researcher in persuasion. It contains definitions and applications of persuasion tactics/models to the Web. The website is very informal and easy to follow.
The blog by ‘Influence at Work’ – an organisation founded by Robert Cialdini – contains discussions and articles on the topics of compliance and social marketing.
The Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab is run by B. J. Fogg and runs many research projects on the area of persuasive technology. The purpose of the Persuasive Technology Lab is to create insight into how computing products – from websites to mobile phone software – can be designed to change people’s beliefs and behaviours. The website contains articles and videos on the area.
Multiple Choice Questions
Essay Questions
- Explain the differences between compliance and conformity. Provide examples from the on-line environment to illustrate your answer.
- Captology is a multidisciplinary field with a myriad of possible applications. Discuss the various fields and causes to which persuasive technologies can contribute.
- Discuss the ethical issues that might be faced from using persuasive technologies.
- How far would you go when playing a game using avatars in terms of how you would treat the avatars? Would it be ‘easier’ to cause pain rather than kill an avatar ?