The Influence of Social Influence on Decision Making

Running head: DECISION-MAKING
DECISION-MAKING
Name of Student
Name of the University
Author Note

DECISION-MAKING1
Executive Summary
Social influences refers to the behavioural changes in a person caused due to another
person whether intentionally or unintentionally due to the influencer and is dependent upon the
relationship between the influencer and the person being influenced. It therefore refers to the
conformity, obedience and compliance to the influencer. Decision making therefore is dependent
upon the social influence created by the influencer upon the person being influenced. It can also
be said that the normative expectation and the social influence of persons has an impact on the
decision making capability of the people. The main aim of the paper is to show the influence of
society or the impact of social influence on the decision making capabilities of people. The paper
will discuss about certain theories related to decision making and the way the social influence
has an impact on the decision making process of people. Some of the theories that will be
discussed in the paper is that of Solomon’s asch classical theory, Fred Luthan’s theory and
various other theories.

DECISION-MAKING2
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................4
Solomons’s Asch’s classic study into the impact of social conformity on decision making..........4
Stanley Milgram’s classic study of influence that obedience to an authority figure can have on
decision making...............................................................................................................................6
Fred Luthans study on influence of information presented in computer printout in contrast to the
same information presented from an ordinary typewriter...............................................................8
Groupthink examples.......................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................13

DECISION-MAKING3
Introduction
Decision making refers to selection of particular courses of action from among different
alternatives. It refers to choosing the best alternative dependent upon various factors such as-
beliefs, values, social influences and others (Higgs, 2015). Social influence refers to the
behavioral changes brought in a person due to another person whether intentionally or
unintentionally and it also depends upon the relationship between the influencer and the person
being influenced. Therefore it can said that social influence is related to-obedience, conformity
and compliance. It can also be said that normative expectation and the social influences have an
impact on decision making (Backward & Festinger, 2017). The main aim of the paper is to show
the relationship between the social influence and decision making of people. The paper discusses
will discuss about the various theories in order to explain the relationship between the social
influence and decision making. Some of these theories are- Solomon’s Asch, Stanley Milgarm
and others.