All quiet on the social front...
Well, I've been quiet for around about the same time that 'Umbrella' has been number one, if not longer, so I thought I'd better give an update.
Over the past few weeks I've been mulling. Not just mulling about nutting mind you. A while ago I was discussing with a research company how to develop a system to evaluate social influence online and we agreed that it would be important to establish the ingredients - or levers - to measure. But how to do this?
I had already met with a professor from the London School of Economics to discuss what this might look like, but the research team suggested reaching out to colleagues in a couple of Universities to see how this might be done. After a couple of weeks of scoping, the following came back:
"I’ve had a chat with my contacts at various psychology departments about the potential of researching what we discussed. They all independently suggested the same potential way forward however this was not by looking at social influence. I’ve written a briefing document outlining the general outcome of the conversation and summarised the potential way forward. Be interested to see what you think."
Independently, all those this was discussed with agreed that a definition that would accurately encapsulate the idea of social influence would be extremely difficult to achieve.
To me, this was part of the problem; that psychologists would not consider the development of social influence a possible activity. Instead, they wanted to see how people reacted to specific stimulus - thus adding to the research coffers.
I wasn't concerned with the need for ongoing study. I was however much more pleased with Elliot Smith, Indiana University, Department of Psychology's paper which called for cross-departmental study. However, on contacting him, the same academic nose in the air attitude came back; none of these people are interested in the application of study, only the pursuit.
In mulling all of this over, I came across a book, The Science of Social Influence, which has some very smart thinking about social levers perhaps being arranged in a periodic table format. An email has gone to the author, Anthony Pratkanis, to find out if this is in existence. He has identified 107 tactics for social influence as well as 18 techniques for gaining credibility, and I think we might just be on to something here...I'll keep you posted.
- Posted by justinhayward on 02/07/2007.
- justinhayward's site
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