Social Engineering Blogs

For our project we created a Facebook page, ‘Mindfulness Matters’, to persuade followers to start practicing Mindfulness. Research has shown mindfulness to be effective in many areas, particularly in reducing stress (Brown & Ryan, 2003; Khoury et al., 2013). As university can be a highly stressful time for many people, we felt that educating people on how to practice mindfulness would equip them with the appropriate tools to prevent and deal with stressful periods.Various tips and posts relating to the topic of mindfulness were posted on this page. Through this page we managed to reach 79 Facebook users and shared useful information about mindfulness with them, which could help them incorporate it into their own lives. We also used this page to publicise an upcoming even at the University of Warwick library. This event included a meditation session and a talk about mindfulness which both relate to the stress-release exercises that we previously suggested on our page. We shared the event and promoted it on our page, encouraging students to go and participate in the sessions targeted at reducing anxiety and helping students cope with stress. We had permission from the library staff to do so. To promote awareness of mindfulness, we created posters which were then stuck up at the University of Warwick library. As is shown above, the poster features an image of celebrity actress, Emma Watson. Our reason for using her image was so that we could increase compliance for mindfulness use through the celebrity endorsement effect. Celebrity endorsement has been shown to increase compliance (Erdogan, 1999) as people often associate perceived characteristics (e.g. likability and attractiveness) of the celebrity with the product (or in this case, mindfulness) being advertised, thus making it more desirable for the audience. Along with the posters, we also stuck up a sign up sheet, which encouraged people to sign and publicly show their commitment to mindfulness by agreeing to take 2 minutes out of their day to just focus on themselves and their breathing. This was aimed at reducing their stress and anxiety and to help them feel more positive. The sign up sheet makes use of the ‘foot-in-the-door’ technique (Freedman & Fraser, 1966), which suggests that if someone agrees to a small request then they will be more likely to agree to a subsequent larger request. By asking them to comply to a small request of trying out a mindfulness technique for 2 minutes, we hoped that our audience would be more likely to try out mindfulness properly for an extended period of time on their, although we did not measure this. This also incorporates the principle of consistency (Petrova, Cialdini & Sills, 2007), as we hope that people will be more likely to try out mindfulness in the future having signed up and committed to this two minute trial, to remain consistent with their previous behaviour. References:Brown, K. W., & Ryan, R. M. (2003). The benefits of being present: mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of personality and social psychology, 84, 822.Erdogan, B. Z. (1999). Celebrity endorsement: A literature review. Journal of marketing management, 15, 291 – 314. Freedman, J. L., & Fraser, S. C. (1966). Compliance without pressure: the foot-in-the-door technique. Journal of personality and social psychology, 4, 195. Khoury, B., Lecomte, T., Fortin, G., Masse, M., Therien, P., Bouchard, V., … & Hofmann, S. G. (2013). Mindfulness-based therapy: A comprehensive meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 33, 763-771.Pretrova, P. K., Cialdini, R. B., & Sills, S. J. (2007). Consistency-based compliance across cultures. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 104-111. By: Navina GandhiRebecca RooneyLiam WardFlorence Cambridge 

The aim of our project was to make a positive change in students’ attitude towards the participation in on-campus activities and promote the involvement in the SU societies outside their academic life. To tighten the connection between students and on-campus societies, we introduced the idea of having a forum for societies with up-to-date information on all events. We propagated our idea using a variety of mediums, including a questionnaire survey, a poster and emails to the societies officer at Warwick University.First, we carried out a survey in the library by randomly asking 52 students to fill in a short questionnaire with questions about their current involvement in societies and whether such a forum could raise their interest in society events (Figure 1).Figure 1. A survey on society participation and experienceAs shown in Figure 2, 21% of the students were not involved in any societies; 80% felt that they could be more aware of the up-to-date events on campus. What has been emphasized was that the majority of students (85%) would like a societies forum with up-to-date information of all society events. Year of study % Year 1 29 Year 2 21 Year 3 42 Year 4 6 Master 2 Involved in any society? % Yes 79 No 21 Could be more aware of what’s going on on-campus? % Yes 81 No 9 I don’t know 10  Having a forum for societies with up-to-date info on all events? % Positive 85 Neutral/Negative 15 Would it increase your involvement with societies? % Positive 71 Neutral/Negative  29  Positive attitude changes in non-society members’ behaviour % Change in attitude 73 Attitude remain unchanged 27 Figure 2. Results of the surveyAfter collecting the responses, we created a poster in order to persuade Warwick students, societies’ committee members, and the societies officer to support setting up of the events forum.Figure 3.  Persuasive poster – We want to be more connected!Subsequently, we wrote an email to George Creasy, the societies officer of Warwick, together with the poster in an attempt to persuade him to consider the forum as an effective platform on which latest information could be found. Finally, we received the reply from George (Figure 5 & 6).Figure 4. An email to the SU societies officerFigure 5. A reply from the SU societies officerEmma HuangNkhanise PhiriYannie Lau

HOW TO MAKE A PROSOCIAL CHANGEObjective:Influence individuals to donate to a charity that is not well known. Why:Individuals give freely to charities that are known but less willing to give to less famous charities. For example, cancer research raise over £431million  and Oxfam £385.5million per annum. Other less known charities, raise considerably less. We believe one reason for this is effectiveness of persuasion and influence. Chosen Charity:Children’s University Foundation is and International critically acclaimed charity. They raise less that £1million per annum.The volunteers work with underprivileged children (7-14years) to bridge the gap in education between students of different socioeconomic status.  They promote social mobility by providing access to high quality out-of-school hours learning activities.  The ambition is to aspire, boost achievement and foster a love of learning. The closest branch of the charity is in Warwickshire and a promotional video for the charity was also filmed  by students at the University of Warwick. The work done by Warwick students, was inspiring for the students affected by the Children’s University Trust.With the Government cutting funding to community activities, the charity’s work is becoming even more important. http://www.childrensuniversity.co.uk/home/about-us/Proposed Action Plan:·         Book fundraising buckets at SU Reception for 6 weeks. ·         Form a partnership with the SU and Warwick Volunteers to support the project·         Email Warwick Volunteers and request to play promotional video at the Piazza·         Create Petition form ·         Decide specific location to fundraise ·         GO OUT AND FUNDRAISE!Email sent to Warwick SU and Warwick Volunteers:Measures ·         Amount of money raised using the different techniques ·         Number of donations per day Techniques and Results:DOOR-IN-THE-FACE: Follow a large refused request with a small one. ResearchSeveral confederates made requests through door-to-door sales. In the DITF condition, they made a large/moderate request for homeowners to volunteer and fundraise for an unknown charity. When this request was rejected, confederates asked the subjects to give any amount for the charity (small request). Participants in the control condition received only the small request. 60%of the participants in the DITF condition complied compared to 31% in the control condition (Tusing and Dillard, 2000). Our action·         Ask university students to donate 2 hours of their time now to raise money for the charity (large)·         Ask the students to donate £1 (small)FOOT-IN-THE-DOOR: Make a small request to pay the way for compliance to a larger request.ResearchIn 1983, Schwarzwald, Bizman and Raz conducted an experiment asking people to sign a petition for the establishment of a social club for the handicapped. This was followed by a larger request to donate either an amount of money of their discretion or a predetermined amount (£40,50, or 60) requested by the canvasser. Results revealed that those who had a signed a petition were more likely to donate. Our action:               ·         Ask university students to sign petitions for the university to allow charity videos to be played on the Piazza screen (small request)·         Ask students to simultaneously donate to the charity (large)PetitionMERE-EXPOSURE: Repeatedly expose subjects to the desired stimulus. This will induce familiarity and likely behaviour change.Our action:·         Play the charity promotional video on the piazza screen ·         Familiarise university students to the charity and it’s work·         Increase likelihood of donation when askedResearchIn the experiment, there were four pairs experimenters, a talker and a listener. The talker had to talk to the listener infront of the subject. There were 3 conditions, in the first one, the experimenter had to conduct a pleasant conversation with the listener infront of the subject. In the second condition, the experimenter had to conduct an unpleasant conversation infront of the subject. In the controlled condition, no conversation took place. The talker had to then ask the subject for money (a quarter) by saying that he could not find his wallet. It was found that a small increase in familiarity with an unfamiliar supplicant (even if the conversation was unpleasant) increased positive action i.e. donation (Macaulay, 1975).Video:OVERALL RESULTS Foot-in-the-Door Door-in-the-Face Mere Exposure Just-Ask Number of Donations 73 64 117 50 Amount Collected 37 29 92 25 References:Macaulay, J. (1975). Familiarity, Attraction, and Charity. The Journal Of Social Psychology, 95(1), 27-37.Schwarzwald, J., Bizman, A., & Raz, M. (1983). The foot-in-the-door paradigm effects of second request size on donation probability and donor generosity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 9(3), 443-450.Tusing, K. J.& Dillard, J. P. (2000). “The psychological reality of the door-in-the-face: It’s helping, not bargaining”. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 19: 5–25.Maria Shahzad, Abheer Bawany and Devika Jain