When I was in high school, I got away with many things. It was interesting how I could get away with so many bad things, just because I made my parents realize that it could be worse. Here’s what a typical conversation would look like when I asked my parents for permission for my weekend plans. First, let me give you some background information, Elizabeth was my best friend and Kyle was our good friend that moved four hours away.
Me: Can I go with Elizabeth to go visit Kyle for the weekend?
Parents: (laugh) You’re driving to Tyler?
Me: Yea! It’s going be a really fun road trip!
Parents: No! That’s too far away and y’all shouldn’t travel alone.
Me: UGH! You never let me do anything fun! (As I walk away to my room)
Then I proceed to call Elizabeth and tell her the news. Then we plan our second idea; tell our parents we’re spending the night at each other’s house, but in reality drive to Tyler. The conversation goes something like this:
Me: Since we’re not driving to Tyler anymore, we’re having a slumber party at Elizabeth’s. Can I go to that?
Parents: Yes! Have a good time!
Me: Thank you! (Wow! That was incredibly easy!)
When I was younger, I was not worried about why this technique was so effective. I was just glad it worked! I now have learned that this is a technique of compliance and that it is scientifically proven to be effective. Cialdini & Ascani (1976) have named it the “Door-in-the-face technique” it consists of asking for a very big request and once that one is rejected, asking for a smaller request. From other studies, compliance rates have increased more than double if the smaller request is preceded by the large outrageous effect.
There are two reasons why this technique works. The first one is called perceptual contrast (Cialdini et al., 1975). Perceptual contrast just says that the door-in-the-face technique works because the second request is smaller and more achievable than the first large request. In my own personal example, the fact that I was only going to be less than twenty minutes away instead of four hours made my parents more likely to comply with my simple request. The second reason why door-in-the-face technique works is because it involves the notion of reciprocal concessions. This concept infers that the person that turns down the first request feels guilty about it and therefore complies with the smaller request (O’Keefe & Figge, 1997). In the example illustrated above, my parents felt guilty about the fact that they “never let me do anything fun!” as I said to them, that they decided to comply with my smaller request.
This technique is a lesson to all. If you are the one asking for something, make sure that your first request is not too ridiculous otherwise it is not going to work. Also, make sure that you ask the same person; in my example it would not have worked if I had asked my dad the bigger request and then asked my mom for the smaller request. If you are the one being asked, think of it as a trick, that way you will not feel pressured to comply or guilty for not complying.
References:
Cialdini, R.B. & Ascani, K. (1976). Test of a concession procedure for inducing verbal, behavioral and further compliance with a request to give blood. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61, 295-300.
Cialdini, R.B., Vincent, J.E., Lewis, S.K., Catalan, J., Wheeler, D. & Darby, B.L. (1975). Reciprocal concessions procedure for inducing compliance: The door-in-the-face technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 206-215.
O’Keefe, D.J. & Figge, M. (1997). A guilt-based explanation of the door-in-the-face influence strategy. Human Communication Research, 42, 64-81.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Why won't you quit!!!
“These stupid things never work!” “I’m never coming back!”
Those are some of the words that you may hear from my dad every time we try to get him to quit smoking either through some at home method or through conferences; believe me we’ve tried it all!
After reading the methods of persuasion in the textbook I learned that getting a message through to somebody is harder than just telling them to do something. Petty and Cacioppo’s (1984) two-track distinction of how messages are perceived has helped me understand the reasons behind my dad’s awful habit. These two routes are the central route and the peripheral route and they are both composed of the message itself, the source of the message and the audience of the message.
In my dad’s case he is the audience. I believe that one of the reasons he has not been able to quit smoking is because he has been forewarned about it. Freedman and Sears (1965) have discovered that those who had the most time to think about the argument they were going to hear were less likely to agree with the argument. Even though I’d like to take my dad to an anti-smoking conference without telling him what we’re doing I don’t believe the argument will be persuasive at all; especially because he has now been inoculated to this argument. According to the inoculation hypothesis (McGuire, 1964), when people are exposed to weak versions of an argument they develop a larger resistance to it. So in reality I may have made my dad’s addiction to smoking worse by introducing ineffective ways of quitting to him. However, I don’t blame myself entirely for this; my dad does have a very strong attachment to this habit and actually enjoys it, therefore very reluctant to quit despite my best efforts.
References:
Freedman, J.L. and Sears, D.O. (1965). Warning, distraction, and resistance to influence. Journal of personality and social psychology, 1, 262-266.
McGuire, W.J. (1964). Inducing resistance to persuasion. Advances in experimental social psychology, 1, 192-229.
Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1984). The effects of involvement on response to argument quantity and quality: Central and Peripheral routes to persuasion. Journal of personality and social psychology, 46, 69-81.
Those are some of the words that you may hear from my dad every time we try to get him to quit smoking either through some at home method or through conferences; believe me we’ve tried it all!
After reading the methods of persuasion in the textbook I learned that getting a message through to somebody is harder than just telling them to do something. Petty and Cacioppo’s (1984) two-track distinction of how messages are perceived has helped me understand the reasons behind my dad’s awful habit. These two routes are the central route and the peripheral route and they are both composed of the message itself, the source of the message and the audience of the message.
In my dad’s case he is the audience. I believe that one of the reasons he has not been able to quit smoking is because he has been forewarned about it. Freedman and Sears (1965) have discovered that those who had the most time to think about the argument they were going to hear were less likely to agree with the argument. Even though I’d like to take my dad to an anti-smoking conference without telling him what we’re doing I don’t believe the argument will be persuasive at all; especially because he has now been inoculated to this argument. According to the inoculation hypothesis (McGuire, 1964), when people are exposed to weak versions of an argument they develop a larger resistance to it. So in reality I may have made my dad’s addiction to smoking worse by introducing ineffective ways of quitting to him. However, I don’t blame myself entirely for this; my dad does have a very strong attachment to this habit and actually enjoys it, therefore very reluctant to quit despite my best efforts.
References:
Freedman, J.L. and Sears, D.O. (1965). Warning, distraction, and resistance to influence. Journal of personality and social psychology, 1, 262-266.
McGuire, W.J. (1964). Inducing resistance to persuasion. Advances in experimental social psychology, 1, 192-229.
Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1984). The effects of involvement on response to argument quantity and quality: Central and Peripheral routes to persuasion. Journal of personality and social psychology, 46, 69-81.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Participant Observer Blog
Social psychologists have developed many tools to be able to research how people make inferences about others. The Implicit Associates Test (IAT) is one of these tools; this test is taken on-line. The website allows you to choose what type of preference you’d like to make; for example age, gender or weight. For this blog I decided to take the age preference test and the weight preference test. The results show that I have no automatic preference between old and young people; but I do have a slight automatic preference for thin people. These results surprised me a little bit because I actually thought I would have a slight preference for young people since I am around them more often. I believe that I obtained the result of no preference between young and old people because my perception of young and old people is different than the one on the test. Even though my mom is not old I categorize her under the old people category, the test does not account for this difference. I believe that I obtained the result of a slight automatic preference towards thin people because I am a schematic about my weight and notice it in other people as well. I believe that the IAT shows both our “true” attitude and cultural associations we may have. I believe that it shows our “true” attitude because we are conscious of the choices we make both during the test and in everyday life; however culture puts many of those choices out there. Completing the IAT did make me think of stereotypes differently. I will try to be more aware of how I perceive people that are overweight because I may have a negative perception of them without even noticing it.
I attempted to go to the IAT website and change the results of my weight preference. However I was not very successful. I still got a slight preference for thin people. I wish I could have the numerical score because I am sure that I was probably able to lower that score, just not enough. When I retook the IAT I focused mainly on the part when fat and good are paired and making sure I did not make any mistakes when either of those categories popped up. I believe I did reduce my number of mistakes.
References:
Greenwald, A. G., & Farnham, S. D. (2000). Using the Implicit Association Test to measure self-esteem and self-concept. Journal of Personality and Social psychology, 79,1022-1038.
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 1464-1480.
Fazio, R. H., & Olson, M. A. (2003). Implicit measures in social cognition research: Their meaning and use. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 297-327.
I attempted to go to the IAT website and change the results of my weight preference. However I was not very successful. I still got a slight preference for thin people. I wish I could have the numerical score because I am sure that I was probably able to lower that score, just not enough. When I retook the IAT I focused mainly on the part when fat and good are paired and making sure I did not make any mistakes when either of those categories popped up. I believe I did reduce my number of mistakes.
References:
Greenwald, A. G., & Farnham, S. D. (2000). Using the Implicit Association Test to measure self-esteem and self-concept. Journal of Personality and Social psychology, 79,1022-1038.
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 1464-1480.
Fazio, R. H., & Olson, M. A. (2003). Implicit measures in social cognition research: Their meaning and use. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 297-327.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Ice cream and stereotypes
When doing the reading for the week, I became very aware of my own stereotypes. I realize that, like most of us, I have these categorizations of people that belong to a certain group. These categorizations include my perception of Indian people like spicy food, African Americans to be very proud of their race and Asians in general to be very smart.
On Sunday, when the weather was beautiful, I was having ice cream outside. As I was enjoying my ice cream I was also people watching all of the other ice cream eaters. There were many people out there including lots of families with children. One of the families drew my attention because I happened to hear the dad talk about his one year old daughter. I noticed them because the father was talking about college and the method he was going to use to pay for it and that he was going to encourage her to apply for scholarships.
My stereotype of Asians was confirmed by this short conversation the father was having with his friend. At first, I thought his concerns were slightly farfetched because he still had at least seventeen years to worry about that. However, I realized that this stereotype was positive and that it was good for this gentleman to be concerned about his daughter’s future.
After discussing stereotypes in class today, I remembered my encounter from this Sunday. I realized that this positive stereotype was harmful because maybe the father was stressed about living up to the expectation that people of his same group. He wants to make sure that his daughter also fulfills the expectation that Asian people are very smart. This stereotype is also harmful to the poor one year old because she already has her future planned out for her and may not be able to obtain her individuality. I’m glad that I realize the harm of these quick stereotypes, even if they are positive, and I will try to keep people’s individuality in mind.
References:
Dr. G’s 3.1.10 social psychology notes.
On Sunday, when the weather was beautiful, I was having ice cream outside. As I was enjoying my ice cream I was also people watching all of the other ice cream eaters. There were many people out there including lots of families with children. One of the families drew my attention because I happened to hear the dad talk about his one year old daughter. I noticed them because the father was talking about college and the method he was going to use to pay for it and that he was going to encourage her to apply for scholarships.
My stereotype of Asians was confirmed by this short conversation the father was having with his friend. At first, I thought his concerns were slightly farfetched because he still had at least seventeen years to worry about that. However, I realized that this stereotype was positive and that it was good for this gentleman to be concerned about his daughter’s future.
After discussing stereotypes in class today, I remembered my encounter from this Sunday. I realized that this positive stereotype was harmful because maybe the father was stressed about living up to the expectation that people of his same group. He wants to make sure that his daughter also fulfills the expectation that Asian people are very smart. This stereotype is also harmful to the poor one year old because she already has her future planned out for her and may not be able to obtain her individuality. I’m glad that I realize the harm of these quick stereotypes, even if they are positive, and I will try to keep people’s individuality in mind.
References:
Dr. G’s 3.1.10 social psychology notes.
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