The Impact Of Social Context On Persuasion: The Effect Of Others’ Identity

Persuasion is a very common and important phenomenon in our daily life.It refers to the process that persuader transfers information to recipient,try to convince the recipient and make his attitude to be influenced and changed.Persuasion,as a social interactive activity,often occurs in a certain social context.Some previous studies have shown that the attitude of others in social context affects the individual’s attitude and then persuasion happened.However,there have been few studies to investigate the influence of the identity of others on persuasion in social context.Social comparison theory points out that when an individual is in a social context,he will compare himself with others automatically,and he will not compare with everyone else,but compare with similar people.Self-categorization theory holds that individuals have the tendency to automatically divide groups in social situations.Individuals tend to divide himself into groups of similar others(one attribute can be classified as a basis)and refer to their attitudes.Based on this,we put forward the hypothesis of the same identity effect,that is,in persuasive context,individuals are more likely to be influenced by individuals with same identity than different others.In other words,the effect of persuasion in social context depends on the consistency of the identity of others and individual identity.In this paper,three studies are proposed to test the same identity effect in the persuasive situation.In the first study,we use the natural attributes of the subjects to test the same identity effect.The subjects were asked to read three advertising information with different social context(advertising information without social context,advertising information with same identity social context,and advertising information with different identity social context),and then measured the attitude of the subjects on different advertising information.The results show that the persuasion effect of advertising information with social context is better than that without social context persuasion,and the persuasion information with same identity social context is better than the persuasion information with different identity social context.In the second study,we use the minimum group paradigm to start the social identity of the subjects to further verify the identity consistency effect.We present two products to the subjects,and then give other people’s choices to see whether the subjects will choose the same products with others who have the same identity.The results showed that the same identity effect was significant,and the subjects chose the same products as the same identity one.In the third study,we examine the boundary conditions of same identity effect: the role of product attributes.We present a flaunting product and a practical product to the subjects,and then give other people the choice to see whether the subjects will choose the same product with others who have the same identity.The results show that product attributes have no significant impact on the same identity effect.In conclusion,individuals in social context refer to others` attitude,and the identity of others influence the reference effect.Individuals tend to refer to others who are with same identity.