Attenuating the link between threatened egotism and aggression

Research has found that narcissists behave aggressively when they receive a blow to their ego. The current studies examined whether narcissistic aggression could be reduced by inducing a unit relation between the target of aggression and the aggressor. Experimental participants were told that they shared either a birthday (Study 1) or a fingerprint type (Study 2) with a partner. Control participants were not given any information indicating similarity to their partner. Before aggression was measured, the partners criticized essays written by the participants. Aggression was measured by allowing participants to give their partner loud blasts of noise through a pair of headphones. In the control groups, narcissists were especially aggressive toward their partner. However, narcissistic aggression was completely attenuated, even under ego threat, when participants believed they shared a key similarity with their partner.     

I feel like I know you: sharing negative attitudes of others promotes feelings of familiarity

Holding similar negative-versus positive-attitudes toward a third party has been shown to predict increased closeness to a stranger. Here, the authors examined whether this effect is mediated by the heightened feelings of familiarity engendered by shared negative attitudes. In Study 1, participants who shared with a (bogus) stranger a negative attitude of a professor subsequently reported knowing more about the stranger than those who shared a positive attitude, but only when they did not feel strongly about the attitude. In Study 2, a familiarity manipulation produced high levels of closeness among participants who believed they had a lot of information about a stranger. Among those who believed they knew little about the stranger, closeness was facilitated by sharing a weakly held, negative attitude of a professor. Discussion considers the relevance of these findings to the interpersonal attraction literature.     

Sequential requests and organ donation

The author investigated the effectiveness of the foot-in-the-door technique as a method of increasing participants' intention to become organ donors. The participants who agreed to a 1st request were presented with a larger request either immediately or 3 days later. The 2nd request was presented either by the same requester or by a different requester. Compared with a control group receiving only the 2nd request, a significant foot-in-the-door effect emerged in all conditions except 1 (same requester-immediate request), in which the participants showed neither more nor less intention to become organ donors than did the control group.     

When Manipulation Backfires: The Effects of Time Delay and Requester on the Foot-in-the-Door Technique

We examined the effects of 2 variables on compliance rates within the foot-in-the-door procedure. Participants who agreed to a small request were presented with a larger request either immediately after the first request or 2 days later. The second request was presented either by the same person or by a different requester. Compared to a control group receiving only the large request, participants were more likely to agree to the second request in all experimental conditions except one. When the same requester presented the second request without delay, participants were less likely than the control group to agree to the target request. This latter condition represents a situation in which typical foot-in-the-door procedures can backfire on the requester.     

Sequential Requests and Organ Donation

Abstract

The author investigated the effectiveness of the foot-in-the-door technique as a method of increasing participants' intention to become organ donors. The participants who agreed to a 1st request were presented with a larger request either immediately or 3 days later. The 2nd request was presented either by the same requester or by a different requester. Compared with a control group receiving only the 2nd request, a significant foot-in-the-door effect emerged in all conditions except 1 (same requester-immediate request), in which the participants showed neither more nor less intention to become organ donors than did the control group.     

Amae in Japan and the United States: an exploration of a "culturally unique" emotion

The experience of an emotion considered to be culturally unique (i.e., Japanese Amae) was tested in the United States, where there is no word to describe the concept. North American and Japanese participants read scenarios in which a friend made an inappropriate request (Amae), made no request, or made the request to another friend. Both American and Japanese participants felt more positive emotion and perceived the requester as feeling closer to them in the Amae condition than in the other two conditions. However, Americans felt more in control when asked for a favor than when not asked, a pattern that did not emerge among the Japanese. Cultural specificity of hypocognized emotions is discussed.     

Effects of public and private deviancy on compliance with a request

A confederate requester asked subjects to write letters for an educational campaign after they had completed a battery of tests and received either deviant or nondeviant feedback. Half of the subjects were led to believe that the requester had knowledge of their test performance; the remaining half believed that the confederate did not know their test scores. Within these conditions, some subjects believed that complying with the request would involve future meetings with the requester while others were not led to anticipate any future interaction. As expected, deviants complied more than nondeviants replicating Freedman and Doob's (1968) results; however, neither the secret/known nor the future interaction variations produced effects. Contrary to the prediction that deviants are compliant because they wish to avoid mistreatment, secret deviants complied slightly more than known deviants. Compliance was discussed as instrumental in improving self-image.     

Raising the Price of Agreement: Public Commitment and the Lowball Compliance Procedure1

Three studies examined the effect on compliance when a requester raises the price of the request. Participants in Experiment 1 were told that they would receive a free coffee mug for donating money to a fundraiser but were interrupted before they could respond and were told that the fundraisers were out of mugs. These participants were less likely to donate money than a group told nothing about the mugs. Experiments 2 and 3 compared this interruption procedure with the lowball procedure, which also uses a small‐to‐large price progression. The results from these two studies indicate that allowing people to respond to the initial price is critical for producing the lowball effect. Without a statement of public commitment, the small‐to‐large price progression led to a decrease rather than an increase in compliance relative to a control group.     

I'm free but I'll comply with your request: generalization and multidimensional effects of the “evoking freedom” technique

The “evoking freedom” technique is a verbal compliance procedure that solicits someone to comply with a request by simply telling them they are free to accept or to refuse the request. The measure of the efficiency of this technique on compliance with large samples and the evaluation of its influence on various requests was tested in the first set of experiments. This technique was found to be efficient in increasing the number of people who agreed to give money to a requester, the number of smokers who agreed to give a cigarette, passersby who agreed to respond to a survey, and homeowners who agreed to buy pancakes. In the second set of experiments in which the mode of interaction between the requester and the person solicited was tested, the “evoking freedom” technique was found to be associated with greater compliance with a request addressed by mail and through face‐to‐face, phone‐to‐phone, or computer‐mediated interaction. The third set of experiments tested the effect of semantic variations of the “evoking freedom” technique and the weight of the repetition of the semantic evocation of freedom. These later experiments that used various phrases evoking the freedom to comply were found to be associated with greater compliance. Moreover, a double evocation of freedom was associated with even greater compliance than a single evocation. The importance of this technique for commitment communication is discussed.     

“I Hope I'm Not Disturbing You,Am I?” Another Operationalization of the Foot‐in‐the‐Mouth Paradigm1

A study by Howard (1990 ) proposed a compliance technique built on a social routine. We tested a technique based on an alternative routine. Our hypothesis was that asking people about their availability before making a request would result in increased compliance. A group of 1,791 participants were asked to answer a questionnaire by phone for a consumer survey. The results showed that compliance rates were higher when the requester inquired about respondents' availability and waited for a response than when he pursued his set speech without waiting and inquiring about respondents' availability. The results are discussed based on 2 complementary consistency mechanisms ( Aune & Basil, 1994 ; Tedeschi, Schlenker, & Bonoma, 1971 ).     

A Relational Obligations Approach to the Foot-In-The-Mouth Effect

An earlier study by Howard (1990) employed a "foot-in-the-mouth" approach (FITM) to increase the frequency of compliance with charitable requests. This effect was explained through consistency theory: People are more likely to comply with a request for a charitable donation if the person making the request first asks the potential donor how he or she is feeling, and then acknowledges the donor's response. The potential donor was expected to behave in accordance with his or her publicly stated feeling-state. However, some of the compliance in Howard's study may be attributable to an increased perception of relationship between the requester and donor (Roloff, 1987). Not only was the donor required to be consistent with his or her publicly stated feeling-state, but the donor had to behave in a manner consistent with the relationship implied by the requester. Two studies examined this possibility. The first study found a FITM approach that manipulated only relational obligations consistency resulted in higher rates of compliance than both the standard and feeling-state FITM approach. A second study examined the mechanism for this increased compliance. Results show that although both FITM approaches produced more positive relational perceptions between the requester and donor than the standard approach, the relational obligations approach produced more positive relational perceptions than did the other FITM approach.     

Evolving informational credentials: the (mis)attribution of believable facts to credible sources

Three studies demonstrate that individuals often rely on a "belief force equals credible source" heuristic to make source judgments, wherein they assume that statements they believe originate from credible sources. In Study 1, participants who were exposed to a statement many times (and hence believed it) were more likely to attribute it to Consumer Reports than to the National Enquirer. In Study 2, participants read a murder investigation article containing evidence against two suspects from credible and noncredible sources. When participants believed a particular suspect to be guilty, they misattributed evidence incriminating that suspect to the high-credibility source. Study 3 demonstrated that this phenomenon occurs because individuals assume their beliefs are true and that true beliefs come from credible sources; when participants were given feedback that their beliefs were incorrect, the relationship between beliefs and source inferences did not occur.     

Benevolent sexist beliefs predict perceptions of speakers and recipients of a term of endearment

This study examined how endorsement of benevolent sexist ideologies predicts perceptions of requesters who use a term of endearment and of the female addressees who comply with their requests. Undergraduate women who previously completed the Benevolent Sexism Scale as part of the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory were randomly assigned to one of four groups. They watched one of four videos in which a female addressee responded to a request that either included or did not include the term of endearment "hon"; the requester was either male or female. Participants then rated both actors' social likeability. Among participants who watched a woman respond to a female requester who addressed her with the term "hon," benevolent sexism scores predicted liking for the female responder and disliking of the female requester. Findings reflect the dissatisfaction of women who are high in benevolent sexism with women who act outside of traditional gender role expectations.     

Consistency-based compliance across cultures

A field study investigated cross-cultural differences in choice-congruent behavior and its impact on compliance. U.S. and Asian participants received a request to complete an online survey and a month later they were approached with a larger, related request. Compliance with the initial request had a stronger impact on subsequent compliance among the U.S. participants than among the Asian participants. Despite their lower rate of compliance with the initial request, the U.S. participants who chose to comply were more likely than their Asian counterparts to agree to the subsequent request. Further analyses revealed that this effect was driven by differences in the individualistic/collectivistic orientation of the participants from the two cultures. Within both cultures, the more individualistic participants showed stronger consistency with their earlier compliance than the more collectivistically oriented participants.     

Decisions and revisions: the affective forecasting of changeable outcomes

People prefer to make changeable decisions rather than unchangeable decisions because they do not realize that they may be more satisfied with the latter. Photography students believed that having the opportunity to change their minds about which prints to keep would not influence their liking of the prints. However, those who had the opportunity to change their minds liked their prints less than those who did not (Study 1). Although the opportunity to change their minds impaired the postdecisional processes that normally promote satisfaction (Study 2a), most participants wanted to have that opportunity (Study 2b). The results demonstrate that errors in affective forecasting can lead people to behave in ways that do not optimize their happiness and well-being.     

Hide and seek: the effects of revealing one's personal interests in intra‐ and intergroup negotiations

The present research examined the effects of information sharing about self‐interest and group membership of the negotiation partner on negotiation cognitions, behaviors and outcomes. Study 1 (n = 77) showed that in anticipation of the negotiation, participants placed more trust in an in‐group member, and were more willing to exchange information with a negotiation partner who revealed his/her self‐interest. Study 2 (n = 80) examined how these effects influenced the development of attitudes and behavior during and after the negotiation. Results showed that negotiations with in‐group members were more cooperative when they shared, rather than not shared, information about underlying self‐interest. By contrast, negotiations with out‐group members were more cooperative when they did not share, rather than shared, information about their underlying self‐interest. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The rejection of moral rebels: resenting those who do the right thing

Four studies document the rejection of moral rebels. In Study 1, participants who made a counterattitudinal speech disliked a person who refused on principle to do so, but uninvolved observers preferred this rebel to an obedient other. In Study 2, participants taking part in a racist task disliked a rebel who refused to go along, but mere observers did not. This rejection was mediated by the perception that rebels would reject obedient participants (Study 3), but did not occur when participants described an important trait or value beforehand (Study 4). Together, these studies suggest that rebels are resented when their implicit reproach threatens the positive self-image of individuals who did not rebel.     

Ask a busy person: attentional myopia and helping

According to an oft‐quoted piece of folk wisdom, if one wants something accomplished, the best person to ask is a busy person. We tested a version of this proposition in two studies. Study 1 exposed participants to a helping request in which cues promoting the relevant behavior were made more salient than those inhibiting it. Study 2 featured a request in which inhibiting cues were made more salient than cues promoting the behavior. In both studies, participants who were “busied” by high cognitive load showed more influence of the dominant behavioral pressure than did participants under minimal load. The results suggest that busy people can respond more to a helping appeal, but only when cues facilitating helping are more salient than those discouraging it.     

Let's Dialogue About Penny: Effectiveness of Dialogue Involvement and Legitimizing Paltry Contribution Techniques1

Earlier research has shown (Cialdini & Schroeder, 1976) that the statement “Even a penny will help” added to a standard request for charity donation considerably increases the probability of carrying it out. The present study tested the effectiveness of this technique in various contexts in a set of 3 field experiments conducted on the streets of 2 Polish cities. The results proved, first, that success can be strengthened when combined with a dialogue in which a requester is involved prior to being asked for a donation. Second, it was shown that the dialogue itself produced more compliance than did a monologue. Third, it was demonstrated that dialogue related to the content of the requested issue may or may not result in an increase in compliance, presumably depending on the in‐group/out‐group focus of the dialogue's content. Practical implications for charity donation are offered.     

The appeal of the underdog

When people observe competitions, they are often drawn to figures that are seen as disadvantaged or unlikely to prevail. The present research tested the scope and limits of people's support for underdogs. The first two studies demonstrated, in the context of Olympic matches (Study 1) and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Study 2), that observers' support for a competitor increased when framing it as an underdog. The final two studies explored mechanisms underlying support for underdogs. Study 3 showed that participants attributed more effort to a team when they believed it to be an underdog, and perceptions of effort mediated liking. In Study 4, participants reading a hypothetical sporting event supported a team with a low probability of success and labeled it an underdog unless it had greater resources than an opponent, suggesting that low expectations by themselves do not engender support if positive outcomes are not seen as deserved.