Applied Social Psychology: Cultural Influence
In this 36 week guided and interactive online high school course, students will create and publish a Cultural Influence Plan based on the factors of social influence developed by U.S. Army Psychological Operations forces over the last half a century, as well as Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions, as well as various modern influence theorists. They will submit this document for publication in a professional scholarly journal. They will then find an American company that attempts to market to their chosen culture, and they will determine that company's worst-selling product. They will then develop a marketing plan for that company's product to that culture, based on their Cultural Influence Plan, and submit it to the marketing director for that company. Please scroll down for more information.
"To the Jews, I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews;...to the weak, I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, so that I might by all means save some." -- I Corinthians 9:20a, 22
Additional resources required:
- None
So, what's the story?
It started when I started working in U.S. Army Special Operations (Psychological Operations).
Military leaders and civilian leaders alike would talk about “intelligence support to win the information war” or some such.
What they really wanted was the ability to get people from cultures other than our own to do things that we wanted them to do without having to kill them to get them to do it!
So I sat down and came up with a plan for how to do that. I came up with a process. I came up with a list of requirements. I came up with an organizational design for how one would do this professionally.
The problem was that, even though there was a (seemingly) never-ending stream of people and companies coming through either begging for money or offering what someone had paid them a truckload of money to develop, none of them ever answered the decision makers’ question. Meanwhile, I continued to try to get people to let me do it for them for free, but they were not interested in what I had to say.
I finally concluded that I was not charging enough. So I retired.
All this to say: there are a lot of people in the U.S. government that were more than happy to pay millions of dollars for someone to solve this problem for them, so go and get some of that money!
That brings me to the real reason that I chose to build this course (other than my personal obsession): I looked for someone, anyone, who had published anything like this, and I couldn’t find anything!! All I found was people claiming to do influence, but mostly by gut feel or committee consensus, rather than by scientific rigor.
So I decided to buck that trend, teach the next generation how to do it on purpose, and watch the attitude toward the practice of cultural influence start to change.
Here’s to Geography, Culture, and Influence!
Adult accomplishments
- Scholarly Cultural Influence Study submitted for publication in a professional scholarly journal
- A working mathematical model, modeling the influence process for their chosen culture
- An international marketing plan, sent to the marketing director of an American company who sells to the student's target culture, promoting that company's worst selling product, based on the student's understanding of cultural influence of that culture
transferable skills
- Working knowledge of the scholarly publication process for professional journals
- Working knowledge of mathematical modeling
- Marketing planning
- Ability to analyze other cultures in such a way as to know how to influence behavior
- Ability to write a cover letter, selling your skills and contributions
- Intimate knowledge of at least one other culture in the world, and how to achieve change in that culture
What careers will this course give me a leg up on?
- International Marketing Manager - Average Salary: $80,673 (https://www.glassdoor.com)
- International Business Manager - Average Salary: $75,353 (https://www.glassdoor.com)
- Military/Government Overseas Contractor - Average Salary: $93,961 (https://woman.thenest.com)
- Diplomat - Average Salary: $101,333 (https://www.glassdoor.com)
- Applied Sociology Professor - Average Salary: $71,840 (https://www.careeronestop.org)
- Missionary - Average Salary: $33,829 (https://www.indeed.com)
- Military Officer - Average Salary: $94,761 (https://www.glassdoor.com)
General syllabus (Subject to Change as needed)
- Course Start: 22 August 2022
- Week 1:
- Choose Target Culture ("Target Audience" (TA))
- Choose a target behavior for this culture to engage in (TB)
- Week 2:
- Assess TA's ability to engage in TB
- Week 3:
- Compare and contrast TA's Hofstede Dimensions to our culture
- Postulate reasons for the differences between these two cultures
- Week 4:
- Find the TA's "pure preferences" for the TB
- Week 5:
- Analyze the current Narrative concerning the TB
- Week 6:
- Determine TA vulnerabilities
- Week 7:
- Determine TA key communicators
- Week 8:
- Determine "Cultural Ideal" for your TA
- Week 9:
- Affect of Geography on the Narrative
- Week 10:
- Rank order the key communicators for each vulnerability
- Revise cultural dimension analysis
- Week 11:
- Rank order the vulnerabilities relative to each other
- Week 12:
- Revise current narrative based on rank ordered vulnerabilities and key communicators
- Week 13:
- Initial mathematical model write up
- Week 14: Thanksgiving Week
- Determine TA's media accessibility
- Week 15:
- Determine TA's media susceptibility
- Week 16:
- Refine and gather data to test the model
- Find submission guidelines of at least 2 scholarly publications that would accept your work
- Christmas Break: 13 December 2022 - 2 January 2023
- Week 17:
- Hypothesize relationships between Cultural Dimensions and Influence Elements
- Week 18:
- Revise mathematical model based on the relationships between Cultural Dimensions and Influence Elements
- Week 19:
- Test relationships between Cultural Dimensions and Influence Elements by running your model on a classmate's TA
- Week 20:
- Draft Cultural Influence Study
- Week 21:
- Critique classmates' Cultural Influence Studies
- Week 22:
- Revise Cultural Influence Study
- Week 23:
- Find an American company that sells to your TA
- Critique classmate's revised Cultural Influence Study (CIS)
- Week 24:
- Find their 5 worst selling products to your TA
- Revise CIS based on feedback
- Week 25:
- Use geography, culture, and influence to determine customer requirements for one of these worst-selling products
- Submit CIS for publication to one of the publications that you researched previously
- Week 26:
- Use influence analysis to determine customer vulnerabilities (new TB is "buy [worst selling product])
- Week 27:
- Determine TA key communicators for TB
- Week 28:
- Rank order TA vulnerabilities and key communicators within them
- Week 29:
- Analyze the current narrative with respect to your TA and TB
- Revise rank ordering of vulnerabilities and key communicators
- Week 30:
- Engineer an influence Narrative for your TA to perform TB
- Spring Break: 11 - 17 April 2023
- Week 31:
- Determine cultural symbols to help make the Narrative more efficient/effective
- Critique classmates' influence Narratives
- Week 32:
- Media selection based on accessibility and susceptibility
- Graph your family culture on Hofstede's Dimensions compared with your nation, your town, and your neighborhood
- Graph the company's culture on Hofstede's Dimensions with respect to your TA, your nation, and your town
- Week 33:
- Draft marketing plan
- Draft cover letter (treating company as a TA and adopting your marketing plan as TB)
- Week 34:
- Critique classmates' marketing plans and cover letters
- Research contact information for the right "key communicators" at the company
- Week 35:
- Revise and submit marketing plan and cover letter
- Week 36:
- Limits Bounding Analysis (LBA) Final
- Journey of Learning Narrative (JOLN)
- Final CIS
- Final Marketing Plan with cover letter
- Course End: 27 May 2023
Expected Work Load
- Typically one or more tasks that you must perform to move your project iteratively "down the road"
- One or more discussion questions from the teacher to answer
- Responding to classmates' answers to the discussion questions
- Ensuring that you go through any of the learning activities for skills where you are not yet proficient to help you in future weeks' tasks
***All of this is designed to take you about 5 focused hours per week, which is less than you would have if you were attending class in a traditional school.
How can I write this course up on a high school transcript?
- As an Applied Sociology credit, given the in-depth study of cultures that the students must make in order to write their Cultural Influence Study
- As an Applied Social Psychology credit, given the study of social influence factors that the students will undergo in having to write their Cultural Influence Study and their international marketing plan
- As a Human Geography credit, given the students having to understand how their target culture is affected by its neighbors and the rest of the world
- As an Applied Mathematics credit, given that the students will have to develop, test, refine, and make accessible, a mathematical model of the cultural influence process for their target culture
- As an English Composition credit, given the level of writing and the volume of writing that the students will have to do in preparing their Cultural Influence Study and their international marketing plan