ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of each form of influence. Social influence goes to the heart of social psychology. The use of direct influence—rewards, punishment, legitimate authority—to control people’s behavior may control behavior in the short-run but is likely to fail in the long run—sometimes producing a desire to behave in precisely the opposite manner. Heavy-handed forms of influence are especially vulnerable to reactance effects, not only because they are a restriction of freedom for targets, but also because they are transparent to targets. If influence is more effective when it is subtle rather than explicit, it should be especially effective if the target does not even know he or she has been influenced. Likability is influenced by many factors, but two stand out in the context of persuasion: similarity and physical attractiveness. People who are similar to us are influential because they provide a common frame of reference for evaluating ideas and events.
