Social Proof
People generally look to other people similar to themselves when making decisions. This is particularly noticeable in situations of uncertainty or ambiguity.
This trait has led compliance professionals to provide fake information on what others are doing. Examples of this are staged interviews on television advertisements or "infomercials".
Read more about this topic: Influence: Science And Practice
Famous quotes containing the words social and/or proof:
“When the excessively shy force themselves to be forward, they are frequently surprisingly unsubtle and overdirect and even rude: they have entered an extreme region beyond their normal personality, an area of social crime where gradations don’t count; unavailable to them are the instincts and taboos that booming extroverts, who know the territory of self-advancement far better, can rely on.”
—Nicholson Baker (b. 1957)
“To cease to admire is a proof of deterioration.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)