Mind and Behaviour...

Gross, R. (2010) Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour. 6th Edition. Hodder Education: London









Going back to thinking about controlling behaviour, I wanted to research how persuasive communication in particular can influence behaviour and where PR sits on the scale of persuasion.

The diagram above portrays the 'different kinds of attempts to change people's attitudes and behaviour. These range from professional help for emotional and behavioural problems, through inevitable features of social interaction/social influence, to deliberate attempts to manipulate and control others for the benefit of the manipulator' (Gross 2010: 369).

'How we act in a particular situation will depend on the immediate consequences of our behaviour, how we think others will evaluate our actions, and habitual ways of behaving in those kinds of situations' (Gross 2010:369).

Persuasive Communication

According to Laswell (1948) in order to understand and predict the effectiveness of one's person's attempt to change the attitude of another, we need to know 'who says what in which channel to whom and with what effect'. Similarly, Hovland and Janis (1959) say that we need to study:

• The source of the persuasive communication, that is, the communicator (Laswell's who)
• The message itself (Laswell's what)
• The recipient of the message of the audience (Laswell's whom)
• The situation or context

So how can this be achieved? One example that Gross gives is that of Mass-Media Campaigns designed to change:

According to Strobe (2000), Mass-Media campaigns designed to change some specific health behaviour should use arguments aimed mainly at changing beliefs relating to that specific behaviour.
(Gross 2010: 373)

I'm quite interested in the reaction of change and the differences between conformity and obedience.

To some extent it can be quite simple to condition society as one social group would like as 'Cognitive Dissonance Theory (CDT) regards human beings not as rational but as rationalising creatures: attempting to appear rational, both to others and themselves'. (Gross 2010: 376)

So in saying this, a particular social group can influence the social norm. A social norm is described by Turner (Gross 2010:401) as:

A rule, value or standard shared by the members of a social group that prescribes appropriate,expected or desirable attitudes and conduct in matters relevant to the group.


So if this means that a particular social group can manipulate and skew the sustenance of the social norm it suggests that society will remain unquestioning as whatever this social group suggests, it is seen as the social norm.

Obedience vs Conformity

Crutchfield (1955), it (conformity) is 'yielding to group pressure'. Mann (1969) agrees with Crutchfield, but argues that it may take different forms and be based on motives other than group pressure (Gross 2010:401).

Zimbardo and Leippe (1991) define conformity as:

A change in belief or behaviour in response to real or imagined group pressure where there is no direct request to comply with the group nor any reason to justify the behaviour change (Gross 2010: 401).

So how does conformity differ from obedience?


According to Milgram (1992), both conformity and obedience involve the abdication of individual judgement in the face of some external social pressure. In conformity, there's no explicit requirement to act in a certain way, whereas in obedience we're being ordered or instructed to do something. Obedience has to do with the social power and status of an authority figure in a hierarchical situation. Although we typically deny that we conform (because it seems to detract from our sense of individuality), in the case of obedience we usually deny responsibility for our behaviour (Gross 2010: 415).