Measures willingess to conform
Social Influence Task (SIT)
When and why are people’s decisions influenced by the actions and opinions of others?
Social influence tasks measure people's willingness to change their rating behaviors about certain scenarios after observing the rating behaviors of other social groups (i.e. friends, peers, parents, family, etc.). Social influence has been found to be an effective way to change people’s behaviors, from reducing bullying in schools to eating healthier. Processing social influence recruits several brain regions associated with conflict monitoring, social cognition, and reward processing. Adolescents may be especially sensitive to social influence: teen decision-making is often influenced by their peers and adolescents can have difficulties controlling risky or impulsive behaviors when friends are present. Peer pressure, however, is not always negative. Peers can introduce teens to hobbies and interests, inspire positive choices, offer moral support and share new experiences. The differences in decision-making between teens on one hand, and adults and children on the other, are related to dopamine, a neurotransmitter that acts on the brain’s reward center. The number of dopamine receptors is higher in adolescence than at any other time of life. As a result, when a teenager is exposed to a reward—such as a compliment—the reward center reacts more strongly. In addition, it has been shown that being with friends increases teens’ sensitivity to rewards. These two factors can encourage peers to take on new challenges and start new activities.
Resources:- Joorman, J. Why adolescents make riskier choices when with their peers. (2020). https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/thoughts-and-feelings/202001/why-adolescents-make-riskier-choices-when-their-peers
- Siegel, D. (2014). Dopamine and teenage logic. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/dopamine-and-teenage-logic/282895/
- Stevenson, K. T. et al. (2016): The influence of personal beliefs, friends, and family in building climate change concern among adolescents, Environmental Education Research https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2016.1177712
- Nature videos: Adolescent risk-takers: The power of peers. (2018). https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07891-z``
Parameters
The following features can be tweaked (default values in parentheses):- Task scenario phrasing
- Number of trials (100)
- Whether trials should be randomized (yes)
- Inter-trial interval (1000 ms)
- Task instructions
- Labels for min and max values on sliding scale
- Can write/add custom scenario statements
- Whether conditions should be randomized between subjects
- Which conditions should be randomized
What data is collected? How is it scored?
The following variables are recorded:
- SIT_other_group (e.g. peers)
- SIT_diff_score_lower
- SIT_diff_score_same
- SIT_diff_score_higher
"diff_score_..." are computed for three groups of peer feedback: lower, about the same, or higher ratings provided by the other group. Difference score measures how the response of the person changed after seeing the rating of the other group (post rating - pre rating)
Parameters
The following features of this task can be tweaked:
* Default values are shown (can clone task and modify these)
rating_question
How likely are you to
numberOfTrials
100
randomize
Yes
min_rating_label
Not at all
max_rating_label
Very
presentationTimeITI
1000
instruction
In this task you will be asked to make a series of ratings about issues in climate change and environmental awareness.
First, you will be asked to rate, on a scale of 1 to 100, of how likely you are to take a particular course of action. The questions will typically appear in the form of "How likely are you to _______?" The marker will not be initially visible, so please click on the scale to place the marker.
For example, you may be asked "How likely are you to throw away things in the trash that could be recycled?" Please rate how likely you are to behave in this way. We ask that you do these ratings sincerely.
statements
["statement 1", "statement 2", "statement 3"]
showCustomStatements
No
reference_group
["Parents"]
randomizeBetweenSubjects
Yes
What participants see before taking the task
In this task, you are asked to rate how well specific statements apply to you.
What participants see after taking the task
Why this task? Knowing if, when, and how social influence shapes human behavior is important not only for choices that can affect health and happiness of individuals, but also when it comes to society-wide issues like climate change or public health.
Aggregate Variables
These data are automatically written to a csv file upon completion of the task
more info
- SIT_other_group
- SIT_diff_score_lower
- SIT_diff_score_same
- SIT_diff_score_higher
Duration
5 mins