The embedding forces of network commitment: An examination of the psychological processes linking advice centrality and susceptibility to social influence

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Highlights

  • Advice centrality can relate to social influence through network commitment.

  • Network commitment can have affective, normative, and instrumental types.

  • Network commitment can have psychological and relational aggregate forms.

  • Psychological affective and instrumental network commitment relate to conformity.

  • All relational network commitment types relate to perceptions of being influenced.

Abstract

We draw on concepts of embeddedness and commitment to explain people's susceptibility to social influence from their personal network. Using two samples and multiple methods (experimental manipulation, social network inventories, and surveys) we assess whether embeddedness in one's social network (i.e., advice centrality) affects susceptibility to social influence, via commitment to one's personal network. We extend concepts of affective, normative, and instrumental commitment to an individual’s personal network for this purpose. In Study 1, we experimentally manipulate normative social information and find that central members are more likely to conform to social influence, according to mechanisms of psychological affective and instrumental network commitment. Study 2 tests the robustness of our generalized predictions by considering how advice centrality relates to one’s aggregate dyadic network commitments and perceived social influence. Study 2 results indicate that advice centrality positively relates to perceived social influence through relational affective, normative, and instrumental network commitment.

Introduction

An individual’s susceptibility to social influence can provide both benefits and threats to the individual and their host organization. This susceptibility could have a positive effect on commitment, performance, and employee retention (e.g., Jiang et al., 2012, Mitchell and Lee, 2001). Conversely, it is also a mechanism of dependence on collective opinions that might lead to aggregated groupthink processes (Janis, 1983) and also make one more susceptible to suggestion (Asch, 1951). Traditionally, greater centrality within advice networks is believed to enable greater power, influence, and performance (e.g., Chiu et al., 2016, Mehra et al., 2001). However, these benefits could have concurrent vulnerabilities if advice centrality makes people more susceptible to social influence.

People are embedded in informal social networks that can influence their attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors (e.g., Burt, 2001, Gibbons, 2004, Granovetter, 1985, McEvily et al., 2014). Network members can also be influenced through their commitments to dyadic ties (Lawler & Yoon, 1996). However, we know little about how peoples’ embeddedness (i.e., centrality) within an advice network, and their commitment to the personal ties within this network, relates to their susceptibility to social influence. Herein, we examine how advice centrality affects susceptibility to influence from one’s personal network via network commitment.

We draw on two samples from professional peer networks to examine how commitment to a personal network relates to one’s susceptibility to social influence, and hope to make a few contributions. First, joining recent calls to understand how structural and psychological elements of social networks work together (Casciaro, Gino, & Kouchaki, 2014), we extend commitment research by focusing on a new target of commitment at the individual-level – commitment to one's personal network. Prior commitment research has referenced commitments to one's organization (Meyer and Allen, 1991, Meyer et al., 1993), occupation (Weng & McElroy, 2012), union (Monnot, Wagner, & Beehr, 2011), team (Kukenberger, Mathieu, & Ruddy, 2015), goals (Klein, Wesson, Hollenbeck, & Alge, 1999), and supervisor (Meyer, Morin, & Vandenberghe, 2015). Surprisingly, personal networks have not been studied as a target of one's commitment.

Second, we consider differences in types of commitment and forms of how these commitments are conceived. In considering forms of commitment, or the ways people psychologically bond with their network, we examine the question of commitment both psychologically (Study 1) and relationally (Study 2). We draw from the literatures on commitment (e.g., Lawler and Yoon, 1996, Meyer et al., 1993), social impact (Latané, 1981) and heuristics (e.g., Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier, 2011) to propose a new multi-dimensional structure of network commitment that accounts for different types of commitment bonds (i.e., affective, normative, and instrumental: e.g., Meyer et al., 1993) and different forms of network commitment aggregation (i.e., psychological and relational). This detailed specification of the construct should help to extend Lawler and Yoon’s (1996) dyadic research to outline a broader array of commitments that one can have with their aggregate set of ties in their personal network.

Third, we will explain and empirically assess how these various types and forms of network commitment can make people more susceptible to environmental (i.e., social) influence attempts either directly from the network or from individuals drawing on the network as part of a proactive influence attempt. This will add precision to our understanding of the psychological mechanisms through which the social environment can influence peoples’ thoughts and actions (e.g., Carr et al., 2003, Jiang et al., 2012). That is, we seek to understand if a basic model of embeddedness, wherein embeddedness affects susceptibility to social influence through commitment (see Fig. 1), holds when considering psychological commitment to one's personal network, and alternatively, relational commitment to one's personal network. This knowledge should help to improve our understanding of the mechanisms explaining the relationship between network characteristics and social influence for individuals embedded within larger social collectives (e.g., Gibbons, 2004, Zagenczyk et al., 2010). Using both psychological and relational network commitment and multiple-methods helps to support the robustness of our predictions.

Section snippets

Overview of the theoretical model

We examine how structural embeddedness and network commitment make a person more susceptible to social influence. Using an integration of Lawler and Yoon’s (1996) dyadic model of relational cohesion and Latané’s (1981) social impact theory as a theoretical point of departure, we propose: (1) that structural network embeddedness, conceptualized as in- and out-degree advice centrality, will relate to both psychological and relational forms of affective, normative, and instrumental network

Study 1

We expect individuals to conform to the collective attitude of the network more when presented with cues that reveal the collective opinion of the network according to their levels of psychological network commitment. The social psychology principal of ‘social proof’ is based on the expectation that people will draw on the thoughts and behaviors of others to determine appropriate ways of thinking and behaving (Cialdini, 1993, Cialdini et al., 1999). Organizations and leaders can also engage in

Sample & procedure

We solicited 201 full-time first year MBA students and asked them to complete a social network inventory using a full roster of the members of their cohort. From this inventory, we assessed structural embeddedness (in- and out-degree advice and friendship ties), relational network commitment (at the dyad-level), and perceived social influence (at the dyad-level). Overall, 181 participants completed the network inventory, giving us a response rate of 90%. Our sample was 63% male and had an

General discussion

We examined how individuals are influenced by their centrality within advice networks and their commitment to their personal advice networks. Our results across two separate studies using multiple measures and methods provide support for the premise that elements of structural embeddedness, operationalized as degree advice centrality, relate to various types and forms of network commitment and, in turn, an individuals’ susceptibility to social influence. There also appear to be differences in

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Kelly Wilson, Nealia Sue Bruning, and Heidi Baumann for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. We would also like to thank the University of New Brunswick Faculty of Business Administration’s Faculty development fund for its partial support of this project. Finally, we would like to thank Xiao-Ping Chen (editor), Hui Liao (associate editor), and the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful thoughts and comments.

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