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King's discussion is pertinent to the British defence and security agenda, where influence was recently named as a key objective and capability. I argue that as stakeholders, it is our obligation to monitor the application of our psychological science in order to minimize or avoid the risks of its misinterpretation and misapplication. Academic scholars could contribute in a number of ways to military social influence campaigns. In doing so, we may realize that our understanding of social influence is limited. Future research on influence ought to consider its relevance for the social world we now live in. Adapted from the source document.

The author presents two critiques of King's (2010) examination of U.S. military social influence activities her discussion of five competing conceptions of the relationship between social influence and war. It is proposed that the views presented are in fact complementary but also difficult to compare because they reflect different issues. The second critique concerns King's failure to discuss how behavioral scientists might contribute to the area. It is proposed that significant contributions could be made in assisting the military with validation studies that assess the effectiveness of influence techniques, training, and achieving desired effects. Adapted from the source document.

This thesis is composed by three standalone papers. The first chapter is about opinion formation processes. Individuals influence each other according to the network structure. If the network is connected and satisfies other mild assumptions, the society will reach a consensus. Therefore, it is a matter of interest understanding when the network would be connected or not. Here, we develop a model where the network takes place endogenously, and agents update their opinions accordingly. We study general conditions on the initial distribution of opinions such that consensus will be reached. We provide sufficient conditions for connectedness. In the dynamic model we show that polarization both in the transition and the long run. This essay is a joint work with Paolo Pin (Bocconi University). The second chapter is about peer effects. I consider how social pressure affects the strategic network formation process. Agents choose their links subject to mutual consent, and then equilibrium behaviors are determined by an underlying game where agents choose their effort. I provide a characterization result for all pairwise Nash stable network, and use farsightedness to avoid cycles. As an application, I consider peer effects in the classroom. Results suggest that we could set optimal policies to improve outcome of low achievement students through targeted incentives schemes. In the last chapter I focus on the interaction between real and virtual life. To do so I propose a model of search where agents choose in equilibrium how intense is their on-line activity. The outcomes of the game depend on the network, which takes place through a semi-random process. I extend the standard random network formation allowing agents to hold a certain degree of choice. The model allows to track characteristics on the meeting environment and individual preferences that would make virtual and real life substitutes or complements.

Cover Page -- The Social Influence Processes -- copy -- Contents -- CONTRIBUTORS -- PREFACE -- 1. Power and Influence: An Introduction -- 2. The Construction of Social Reality -- 3. Power and Personality -- 4. Cognitive Complexity and Social Influence -- 5. Interpersonal Attraction and Social Influence -- 6. The Tactical Use of Social Power -- 7. The Exercise of Power and Influence: The Source of Influence -- 8. Influence, Decision, and Compliance -- INDEX

International audience ; We study a stochastic model of influence where agents have "yes" or "no" inclinations on some issue, and opinions may change due to mutual influence among the agents. Each agent independently aggregates the opinions of the other agents and possibly herself. We study influence processes modeled by ordered weighted averaging operators, which are anonymous: they only depend on how many agents share an opinion. For instance, this allows to study situations where the influence process is based on majorities, which are not covered by the classical approach of weighted averaging aggregation. We find a necessary and sufficient condition for convergence to consensus and characterize outcomes where the society ends up polarized. Our results can also be used to understand more general situations, where ordered weighted averages are only used to some extent. Furthermore, we apply our results to fuzzy linguistic quantifiers, i.e., expressions like "most" or "at least a few".

International audience ; We study a stochastic model of influence where agents have "yes" or "no" inclinations on some issue, and opinions may change due to mutual influence among the agents. Each agent independently aggregates the opinions of the other agents and possibly herself. We study influence processes modeled by ordered weighted averaging operators, which are anonymous: they only depend on how many agents share an opinion. For instance, this allows to study situations where the influence process is based on majorities, which are not covered by the classical approach of weighted averaging aggregation. We find a necessary and sufficient condition for convergence to consensus and characterize outcomes where the society ends up polarized. Our results can also be used to understand more general situations, where ordered weighted averages are only used to some extent. Furthermore, we apply our results to fuzzy linguistic quantifiers, i.e., expressions like "most" or "at least a few".

International audience ; We study a stochastic model of influence where agents have "yes" or "no" inclinations on some issue, and opinions may change due to mutual influence among the agents. Each agent independently aggregates the opinions of the other agents and possibly herself. We study influence processes modeled by ordered weighted averaging operators, which are anonymous: they only depend on how many agents share an opinion. For instance, this allows to study situations where the influence process is based on majorities, which are not covered by the classical approach of weighted averaging aggregation. We find a necessary and sufficient condition for convergence to consensus and characterize outcomes where the society ends up polarized. Our results can also be used to understand more general situations, where ordered weighted averages are only used to some extent. Furthermore, we apply our results to fuzzy linguistic quantifiers, i.e., expressions like "most" or "at least a few".

International audience ; We study a stochastic model of influence where agents have "yes" or "no" inclinations on some issue, and opinions may change due to mutual influence among the agents. Each agent independently aggregates the opinions of the other agents and possibly herself. We study influence processes modeled by ordered weighted averaging operators, which are anonymous: they only depend on how many agents share an opinion. For instance, this allows to study situations where the influence process is based on majorities, which are not covered by the classical approach of weighted averaging aggregation. We find a necessary and sufficient condition for convergence to consensus and characterize outcomes where the society ends up polarized. Our results can also be used to understand more general situations, where ordered weighted averages are only used to some extent. Furthermore, we apply our results to fuzzy linguistic quantifiers, i.e., expressions like "most" or "at least a few".

International audience ; We study a stochastic model of influence where agents have "yes" or "no" inclinations on some issue, and opinions may change due to mutual influence among the agents. Each agent independently aggregates the opinions of the other agents and possibly herself. We study influence processes modeled by ordered weighted averaging operators, which are anonymous: they only depend on how many agents share an opinion. For instance, this allows to study situations where the influence process is based on majorities, which are not covered by the classical approach of weighted averaging aggregation. We find a necessary and sufficient condition for convergence to consensus and characterize outcomes where the society ends up polarized. Our results can also be used to understand more general situations, where ordered weighted averages are only used to some extent. Furthermore, we apply our results to fuzzy linguistic quantifiers, i.e., expressions like "most" or "at least a few".

Each of us has secrets of our own and we know others' secrets too. We share these secrets with some people and we keep these secrets from other people. This affects what we know about each other and how, in turn, we are influenced by each other. Social science scholars have consistently found that people influence each other with regard to matters that can be observed like dropping out of school, weight gain or family structures. But of course, there are whole swaths of social life that are unobservable. The central question of this dissertation is: how do we understand social influence when people keep secrets and share them selectively?Existing formal theories of social influence within social networks examine the structure of the network and the relationships between people. These networks are merely the potential for interpersonal communication and influence. Some work, in particular the work on diffusion, examines not just networks but communication networks. But as this inquiry will reveal, even the communication network is a potential network for the transmission of information with regard to a given topic. This inquiry focuses not on potential communication but on realized communication and how that might differ across discussion partners and topics; it does so because communication is necessary for the influence process to occur. I explore secrets and social influence using the test case of abortion secrets in the United States. Abortion is a highly volatile, contested secret. Tens of millions of American women have had abortions and the legality of abortion sits at the center of American politics. I begin by examining who has abortion secrets, or abortion incidence. I calculate the first set of lifetime abortion incidence measures for birth cohorts in the United States and discuss the implications of cohort rates on public opinion and behavior. Theories of social influence suggest that the tens of millions of women who have had abortions in the United States are themselves social and political actors who can influence others, particularly their peers. Hence, scholarship on abortion as a social and political phenomenon should include incidence rates, particularly cohort incidence rates. I find that the number of lifetime abortions a birth cohort of women has differs by when they were born, even when all the cohorts have spent their entire childbearing years with federally legal abortion. Further, when cohort abortion rates decline, all racial and ethnic groups' cohort rates decline at approximately the same rate. This work is based on vital statistic rates.I move on to how secrets spread and the implications of hearing - or not - others' secrets. I compare abortion and miscarriage secrets; this is analytically helpful for two reasons. First, they are concealable, since both are pregnancy-ending events that occur primarily in the first trimester. Abortion, however, is much more highly stigmatized than miscarriage. Second, having had at least one miscarriage is a near-random occurrence; I can thus exploit it to control for a number of otherwise unobservable characteristics that may affect whether someone hears an abortion secret, such as the prevalence of pregnancy in a respondents' social network and the frequency of discussing those pregnancies.Though abortion is more common and affects more women than miscarriage, many more Americans report knowing someone who has had a miscarriage than an abortion. Furthermore, Americans who are anti-abortion are much less likely than their pro-choice peers to hear abortion secrets and as such think they do not know any woman who has had one. This is likely not the case. Rather, women who have had abortions and the people who know about the abortion elect to keep the abortion secret from people who may disapprove. As such, pro-choice Americans hear abortion secrets and perceive - and hence experience - a more diverse network than people who are anti-abortion and do not hear the secrets. I show that individuals' attitudes determine what kind of community they experience; usually they experience one that aligns with their attitudes. This is not because they have chosen to be with people who agree with them or behave as they like. Rather, it is because the people they are with hide information that would reveal difference. With respect to attributes that can be kept secret, diversity is then not just a characteristic of a community but also a characteristic of individual experience of a community. When individuals keep secrets from those who will disapprove of them, processes of social influence - on public opinion, on tolerance and on behavior - are thwarted.These results are based on a nationally representative survey I designed and conducted of over 1600 American adults who provided information on their experience with and knowledge of others' abortions and miscarriages. They also gave detailed information on disclosing and withholding their own and others' secrets. Using the survey data, I then consider how hearing - or not - women's abortion secrets affects Americans' understanding of who gets abortions and why. We form our understandings of the world, what is possible and what is not, what is appropriate and what is not, on a number of things. We heavily weight our own experiences and those of the people we know. If our information about the experiences of those we know is distorted then that will affect our perceptions of the world, or in this case, of abortion patients. Americans' public opinion regarding legal abortion is highly contingent on who the patient is and her reasons for seeking an abortion. Yet, I show Americans misperceive abortion prevalence, the demographic characteristics of abortion patients and their motivations. Further, their perceptions vary most consistently by the number of abortion secrets they have heard. This suggests Americans infer to the national population of abortion patients based on the patients they know of. But, as shown earlier, whose abortions they know of, is highly dependent on their attitudes. This dissertation documents how abortions are often kept secret, particularly from Americans who are opposed to legalized abortion. As such, Americans misperceive the number of women they know who have had abortions. They then infer from their social network to the nation as a whole and similarly misperceive the abortion patient population nationally. The implications of these misperceptions are wide-ranging; this work focuses on the implications for public opinion.In the final chapter of this dissertation, I outline where I will next take the study of secrets. I will examine a wide variety of secrets, from political attitudes to cancer diagnoses and I will employ both quantitative and qualitative methods. Americans keep abortions secret to avert stigma but there are other reasons why one might keep a secret. By extending into other arenas, I will explore these other reasons. I will also be able to capture how secret-keeping and selective disclosure affect other components of American life including the funding of scientific research and the perceptions of polarization. I hope this dissertation will stand as the first steps toward a comprehensive sociology of secrets.