Physical attractiveness and interpersonal influence

The relative success of influence attempts undertaken by attractive vs. unattractive fifth- and sixth-graders was investigated by giving subjects a monetary incentive contingent upon their influencing a peer's behavior. Compared to a control group which was not subject to peer pressure, three groups were successful: attractive males and attractive females with opposite-sex peers and unattractive males with same-sex peers. Attractive girls tended to be more successful than their unattractive counterparts in influence attempts directed toward peers of the opposite-sex. Unattractive males were more effective than attractive males with same-sex peers. Analysis of the influence strategies employed revealed markedly different styles of interpersonal influence, particularly between attractive males and attractive females. The former made considerably more influence attempts and were judged to be more persistent. This type of behavioral difference was not found for unattractive males compared to unattractive females.     

管理者影响策略的结构

本研究根据中国企事业组织内管理者对他人发挥影响力的特点 ,选取反映中国文化的影响计策编成题目 ,并与西方背景下构建的组织影响策略量表汇编成问卷。 2 1 8位中国管理者用汇编的问卷评定他们与直接上司和直接下属在工作中相处时使用这些计策的频率。结果发现 ,在因素水平有“应变控制”和“温情说服”两个正交因素。这两个因素跨影响方向一致。对各因素内的题目做聚类分析 ,发现大多数聚类的内容跨影响方向的一致性不高。与西方的组织策略量表对照 ,因新题目的加入 ,汇编的影响计策量表内的聚类更好地反映了中国管理者使用影响计策的特点。     

Forewarned is forearmed: Conserving self-control strength to resist social influence

Recent research has shown that resisting persuasion involves active self-regulation. Resisting an influence attempt consumes self-regulatory resources, and in a state of self-regulatory resource depletion, people become more susceptible to (unwanted) influence attempts. However, the present studies show that a forewarning of an impending influence attempt prompts depleted individuals to conserve what is left of their regulatory resources and thus promotes self-regulatory efficiency. As a result, when these individuals are subsequently confronted with a persuasive request, they comply less (Experiments 1 and 3), and generate more counterarguments (Experiment 2) than their depleted counterparts who were not forewarned and thus did not conserve their resources, and they are as able as non-depleted participants to resist persuasion.     

Trust, Dependency, and Control in the Contemporary Organization

Trust is an essential element in productive and effective intraorganizational communication and interaction. The present study examined several consequences of trust in terms of influence strategies used and the frequency with which people interact with each other. The study also examined the extent to which the technology of work affects management's dependency on their employees. It was found that distrust of subordinates by managers (n = 275) was associated with the use of strong tactics of influence, little dependency on employees, and the use of personal-related characteristics to explain distrust. It was also found that distrust of managers by subordinates (n = 267) was associated with the use of strong methods of influence, less interaction, less attempts to influence, and the use of personal-related characteristics to explain lack of trust. These findings have clear implications for understanding the relation among worker trust, dependency, and social influence. The data suggest that both employees and employers could benefit from considering the importance of a trusting relationship in the workplace.     

组织情境中的影响策略研究述评

影响策略是指个体采取的旨在使他人态度和行为产生预期改变的行为方式。组织情境下的影响策略受动机、场控制和自我监控等因素的影响,对工作绩效、薪酬、晋升和一些积极组织行为有显著的预测作用。本文侧重介绍了影响策略的结构、测量、前因后果变量以及跨文化研究等方面内容,总结了已有研究为管理实践提供的有价值参考,并指出研究方法的有效互补、对基层职员影响策略的关注和基于中国人行为观念的本土化研究是今后探讨的主要方向。     

When and how norm violators gain influence: Dominance,prestige, and the social dynamics of (counter)normative behavior

The capacity to influence other people is key to success across domains of life, from personal to professional relationships, from the school yard to the retirement home, and from marketing to politics. Traditional approaches hold that people can gain influence in social collectives by behaving in line with prevailing norms. However, mounting evidence indicates that defying norms can enhance one's power, status, and influence. Here, I take stock of this literature and propose a new perspective that can explain seemingly inconsistent links between norm violation and influence. After discussing various social mechanisms that keep norm violators in check (negative emotions, gossip, social exclusion, formal punishment), I review evidence that violating norms can enhance the capacity for influence. I then integrate insights from the dominance/prestige framework of social rank with research on social responses to norm violations to develop a new model that illuminates when and how norm violators gain influence. I discuss implications for understanding the dynamic negotiation of leadership and influence and the maintenance versus decline of normative systems.     

Minority influence in work teams: The impact of newcomers

Although initial work on minority influence was spurred by interest in group processes, relevant research has rarely examined interactions between majority and minority factions. In particular, little is known about how current members of work teams respond to newcomers’ efforts to change existing work practices. In this study, three-person teams (a commander and two subordinates) used a computer-based air-surveillance system to monitor planes flying through a simulated airspace. After either choosing or being assigned a task strategy, teams completed a work shift and received feedback that they had either failed or succeeded. One subordinate was then replaced by a confederate (newcomer) who suggested a new strategy for the next shift. As predicted, newcomers were more influential when teams had been assigned rather than chosen their initial strategy and had subsequently failed rather than succeeded. Although newcomers are often portrayed as passive recipients of influence, this study identifies conditions under which they can function as influence agents.     

Training Implications of Salesperson Influence Strategy

Abstract

Salespeople attempt to influence their customers in different ways. Depending upon the situation, some of their influence attempts are more successful than others. Therefore, salespeople should be trained to recognize key differences in the situations they face and to use those influence strategies which seem to be the most effective in dealing with the particular situations. This article identifies several types of influences used by salespeople, empirically validates their use, suggests some specific training implications related to influence attempts, and offers an operational framework within which the training may be conducted.     

Developmentally delayed children's influence attempts with mothers predict interactions with peers over time

We examined whether influence attempts of 4–6 year-old children with mild developmental delays occurring when interacting with their mothers predicted children's interactions with peers two years later. Hierarchical regressions controlling for relevant child characteristics and a measure of direct parental actions to influence their children's peer interactions revealed a consistent association between influence attempts with mothers and four important aspects of children's peer relationships: successful social bids to peers, initiations to peers, extent of involvement with peers, and overall level of peer interactions. Results were consistent with social communicative processes likely to emerge during children's influence attempts with mothers, which are relevant to peer relationships. The fact that influence attempts with mothers were associated with peer interactions over a time period when peers occupy a more dominant role in children's social relationships supports the role of indirect family influences as a potential intervention strategy to further the peer competence of children with delays.     

From theory to application and back again: implications of research on medical expertise for psychological theory.

Research directed at an understanding of medical expertise is about 30 years old, and many developments in this literature parallel progress in cognitive psychology. Over the past 15 years or so, this research became much more closely identified with particular psychological theories. Initial forays into medicine were essentially direct applications of methods developed in the psychology lab to the more natural domain of medicine, with varying degrees of success. These attempts were followed by a second wave that took the psychological theories themselves more seriously in a more thoughtful application of psychological methods to the medical domain. I will argue in the present paper that the methods and theories used in the study of medical expertise have advanced to the point that there is some reverse flow and they are providing a unique and valuable perspective on the nature of thinking.     

Can religious beliefs combat negative peer influence during adolescence?

The purpose of this study was to identify religiosity dimensions that might be efficacious in helping adolescents combat negative peer influence. In past studies, the protective elements of religiosity were small to non-existent once peer influence was considered. However, peer influence can take many forms and the relation between susceptibility to negative peer influence and religious beliefs is not clear. Two hundred and twenty high school students were surveyed on several dimensions of religiosity via the Attitude to Christianity Inventory, different forms of peer influence (i.e., peer conformity and perceptions of peer behaviours) and their own pro- and anti-social conduct. Through hierarchical regression analyses some religiosity dimensions (i.e., the Bible and social justice) were found to be more protective than others in predicting conduct in the context of peer conformity. Implications for intervention were addressed.     

Myths as Instructions from Ancestors: The Example of Oedipus

The growing interest in dual-inheritance models of human evolution has focused attention on culture as a means by which ancestors transmitted acquired phenotypic characteristics to their descendants. The ability of cultural behaviors to be repeatedly transmitted from ancestors to descendants enables individuals to influence their descendant-leaving success over many more generations than are usually coclusive fitness. This essay proposes that traditional stories, or myths, can be seen as a way in which ancestors influence their descendant-leaving success by influencing the behavior of many generations of their descendants. The myth of Oedipus is used as an example of a traditional story aimed at promoting proper behavior and cooperation among kin. This interpretation of the Oedipus myth is contrasted with Freudian and structuralist interpretations.     

Predicting attempts and sustained cessation of smoking after the introduction of workplace smoking bans

Examined predictors of smoking cessation attempts and predictors of the outcome of those attempts after the introduction of a workplace smoking ban. Smokers were surveyed in the month before the ban came into force, and variables collected at that time were used to predict outcomes 6 months later. Data from 491 respondents who were smokers at the time of the initial survey were used, and a set of potential predictor variables was chosen on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Making a cessation attempt was predicted by the strength of desire to quit and, to less extent, by not having been subject to extensive restrictions on smoking before the mandated ban, having tried to quit before, perceiving oneself high in ability to quit, and being worried about smoke at work. For the outcome of cessation attempts among those who tried, success was best predicted by low levels of a composite habit strength variable and, to less extent, by desire to quit, no previous attempts to quit, the existence of social supports for quitting, and educational status. Although cognitive variables were important in predicting attempts, they played only a minor role in predicting maintenance. Behavioral and environmental variables contributed slightly to prediction of attempts and strongly to prediction of maintenance.     

Overt attempts to change hand preference: a study of group and individual characteristics

Previous work by Porac, Coren, and Searleman (1986) looked at overt attempts to change hand preference from the left to the right side. We extended this research by studying individuals who shifted their handedness from the left to the right side as well as a group who attempted a shift in the opposite direction (right to left). Comparisons of the two shift attempts revealed that the timing, method, and agent of change differed significantly for right versus left shifts. More right than left shifts were successful. Overall, most shift attempts were rated as unsuccessful because they did not result in a handedness classification consistent with the direction of the shift. Individuals classified as successful shifters, whether in the right or left direction, displayed a more ambihanded behavioural pattern than either unsuccessful shifters or the no shift control group. Evidence suggested that left-shift attempts were promoted by original ambihanded tendencies but that ambihandedness in successful right shifts stemmed from the partial success of the switch attempt.     

Agents' self‐esteem moderates the effectiveness of negative‐direct partner regulation strategies

Prior research suggests that trying to change partner's attitudes and behaviors in hostile and demanding ways can successfully produce desired changes in targeted partners. The current research investigated whether the effectiveness of negative‐direct partner regulation strategies depends on the self‐esteem of regulation agents. Two longitudinal studies, involving individuals (N = 156) and couples (N = 174) in ongoing relationships, assessed agents' partner regulation attempts, the regulation strategies agents enacted, and the success of regulation attempts across time. Regulation agents who were low in self‐esteem and engaged in negative‐direct regulation strategies experienced lower regulation success over time. Lower regulation success in turn predicted decreases in relationship quality. These results indicate that negative‐direct regulation strategies are not beneficial when engaged by agents low in self‐esteem.     

Two tests of all-or-none learning and retention

A number of recent experiments have seemed to imply that the basic associations of learning are formed in an all-or-none manner. However, the evidence provided by these experiments has been essentially indirect since the presence of an association has been assessed by an all-or-none method, viz. simple recall. By allowing the subject more than one attempt at recall or recognition more direct evidence can be obtained. All-or- none learning implies that the probability of success during further attempts will be at the chance level. The experiments described show that this is not the case for the stimulus materials used. On the other hand the uncertainty in bits during further attempts was a fairly high proportion of the uncertainty expected on the all-or-none hypothesis. For this reason the results may indicate only a minor breakdown of the hypothesis. In a retention test administered after a week, fewer first-attempt successes were achieved than in the immediate test but, despite this, the uncertainty after a first- attempt failure was about the same as in the immediate test. The experiments also incorporated a second test of the all-or-none hypothesis. This involved comparing 2-choice and 4-choice recognition scores and recognition scores with recall scores. After corrections for guessing, these scores should be identical, if the hypothesis is correct. Results of this corrected-comparisons test tended to support those of the further-attempts test.     

Peer influence on event reports among adolescents and young adults

When two or more people witness an event together, the event report from one person can influence others’ reports. In the current study we examined the role of age and motivational factors on peer influence regarding event reports in adolescents and young adults. Participants (N=249) watched a short video of a robbery then answered questions with no co-witness information or with information believed to be from a co-witness. Public and private response conditions were included to explore motivations for peer influence. Co-witness information influenced participants’ responses, although the effect was equally strong in the private and the public co-witness conditions. Peer influence on event reports was steady across a large age range (11- to 25-year-olds).     

Regulation processes in intimate relationships: the role of ideal standards

This research investigated the consistency between partner perceptions and ideal standards (ideal-perception consistency) and the partner regulation attempts of 200 individuals involved in relationships (Study 1) and 62 heterosexual couples (Study 2). As predicted, greater regulation attempts were associated with lower ideal-perception consistency, and these links operated within 3 pivotal mate-evaluation dimensions and were moderated by perceived regulation success. Ideal-perception consistency also mediated the relation between partner regulation and relationship quality, and cross-lagged analyses suggested that ideal consistency and regulation influenced each other over time. Finally, stronger partner regulation was generally associated with more negative self-evaluations and more self-regulation by the targeted partner. These novel results support and extend the Ideal Standards Model (J. A. Simpson, G. J. O. Fletcher, & L. Campbell, 2001).