Informational Social Influence
What it is
Shaping someone's beliefs by positioning group consensus as evidence that something is true.
How it works
Real-world examples
- •Astroturfing campaigns that create fake grassroots support to make a position seem widely held.
- •Review manipulation where fake positive reviews make a product seem genuinely well-regarded.
- •Authoritarian regimes staging public rallies to create the impression of widespread support.
Ethical guidelines
Pointing to genuine expert or crowd consensus as evidence is reasonable. It becomes manipulation when consensus is fabricated, or when "everyone believes it" is used as a substitute for evidence the person could evaluate for themselves.
- ●Do not fabricate the appearance of agreement or widespread belief.
- ●Present genuine evidence rather than relying on "everyone thinks so."
- ●Differentiate between actual expert consensus and manufactured consensus.
How to defend against it
- ►Verify whether an apparent consensus is genuine by checking diverse, independent sources.
- ►Ask for evidence beyond "most people believe this" — popularity is not proof.
- ►Be especially cautious of consensus claims on the internet where bot and shill activity is common.
From the Defense Playbook
Do not treat a consequential claim as established until two sources that obtained the information separately both support it, and check that they really are separate, because ten outlets repeating one origin are still one source.
Use the aggregated judgment of a small, politically mixed group, instead of your own reading or that of your like-minded friends, to assess whether a story is accurate; averaged ratings from a balanced crowd of laypeople track professional fact-checkers surprisingly well.
Every playbook entry states how strong its evidence is and when not to use it. Browse the full playbook.
References
- Deutsch, M., & Gerard, H. B. (1955). A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgment. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51(3), 629–636Defined informational social influence as accepting information from others as evidence about reality, the process the entry describes; it was strongest when the judgment was uncertain.
- Sherif, M. (1935). A study of some social factors in perception. Archives of Psychology, 27(187), 1–60The autokinetic experiments: in an ambiguous judgment task individuals converged on a group norm and kept using it when later tested alone — the private internalisation of a group's view, as opposed to mere public compliance, that the entry says manipulators exploit by manufacturing consensus.
- Cialdini, R. B., & Goldstein, N. J. (2004). Social influence: Compliance and conformity. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 591–621Modern review organising conformity around the goals of accuracy (informational influence), affiliation (normative influence) and self-concept, and summarising evidence that uncertainty and perceived expertise of the group increase informational influence.