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.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Television Shows
Self-presentation is the way that we let others perceive us. The social psychology text argues that there are various methods of achieving an acceptable self-presentation. One of the ways is through self-verification, which is a method of self-presentation where we want other to perceive us by what we truly think about ourselves (Swann, 1987). Bill Swann et al. (1992) studied couples to illustrate this concept. In the study he had each member of the couple fill out a questionnaire separately about themselves and their partners. The questionnaire measured self-concept and appraisal of their spouse’s self-concept. The results support self-verification theory; partners with high self-concept were more likely to be committed to their spouses if they favored them positively. Likewise, partners with low self-concept are more likely to be committed to their spouses if the spouses rated them negatively.
A pop culture example that supports this concept is the show Maury. I never fully understood the women in the show. Why are they so attracted to these dumb guys?! After learning about the self-verification motive, it makes more sense. These girls are attracted to these guys because they treat them how they feel about themselves. This concept also helped me realize why my friends date those guys that are just not good enough. However, they may think they are good enough because they show their true colors about my friends.
References:
Swann, W.B., Hixon, J,G., and De la Ronde, C. (1992). Embracing the bitter “truth”: Negative self-concepts and marital commitments. Psychological Science, 3, 118-121.
Swann, W.B. (1987). Identity Negotiation: Where two roads meet. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 1038-1051.
A pop culture example that supports this concept is the show Maury. I never fully understood the women in the show. Why are they so attracted to these dumb guys?! After learning about the self-verification motive, it makes more sense. These girls are attracted to these guys because they treat them how they feel about themselves. This concept also helped me realize why my friends date those guys that are just not good enough. However, they may think they are good enough because they show their true colors about my friends.
References:
Swann, W.B., Hixon, J,G., and De la Ronde, C. (1992). Embracing the bitter “truth”: Negative self-concepts and marital commitments. Psychological Science, 3, 118-121.
Swann, W.B. (1987). Identity Negotiation: Where two roads meet. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 1038-1051.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Odd behaviors!
Ever since 2001 I haven’t been the only grandchild from my mom’s side of the family. Lucky for me, my cousin was born right at the time when I could start babysitting. I love my cousin Fer who is now 9 and his little sister Flor who is now 2. I have noticed from babysitting them that they behave much better when their parents are not around. I always thought this was weird because I don’t believe that my aunt and uncle are bad parents.
After reading our social psychology book, I found an explanation for this odd behavior! Two-factor theory of emotion states that emotion is experienced based on physiological arousal and cognitive interpretation of the arousal (Schachter & Singer, 1962). To interpret my cousins’ behavior more specifically my two year old cousin is still in the early years of walking, so sometimes she’ll fall. When I’m around I just make a funny noise and just say “Oh! Down goes baby!” however when her parents are around they freak out “Oh my gosh!! Are you ok?! Poor baby!!!” When using two-factor theory of emotion, my baby cousin reacts to my response with giggles and keeps on with her business because her heightened physiological arousal is cognitively interpreted as silly. When she sees her parents’ reactions she reacts to the fall with fear because she sees fear in her parents. So in reality her “bad behavior” or as I call it “excessive crying” is not because my aunt and uncle are bad parents, it’s because they worry about my cousins and their well being.
A second term I used to explain the life around me using social psychology is self-handicapping. According to Berglas and Jones (1978) people make excuses in anticipation of failure in order to still look good to others. When I read this description it made me think of a girl that we used to have on the swim team a few years back, let’s call her Amber. The first season I swam with Amber, I knew that she was a very good swimmer she was so good that she got a nationals cut and missed going to nationals by one person, although she didn’t make it I knew that she had a lot of potential left in her. The next year, I noticed that she was injured and sick more often and due to all of the illnesses she had to miss practice a lot and did not perform as well in meets. Then I began to notice a pattern, if she did well at the swim meet the following week she was at practice and continued to be well the rest of the week. However, if she performed poorly at the meet, she was sick the rest of the week and blamed her bad performance on the fact the she had been coming down with something. Another odd pattern that I noticed was her reactions to injuries and illnesses around her mother, she was always much worse when her mom was around. Her behavior continued to be like this until she graduated and no longer swam for college. I always wondered why she changed so much, I now realize that it’s because she was trying to make herself feel better about not being as good as she had been in the past.
References:
Berglas, S. and Jones E.E. (1978). Drug choice as a self-handicapping strategy in response to noncontingent success. Journal of personality and social psychology, 36, 405-417.
Schachter, S. and Singer, J. (1962). Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of the emotional state. Psychological Review, 69, 379-399.
After reading our social psychology book, I found an explanation for this odd behavior! Two-factor theory of emotion states that emotion is experienced based on physiological arousal and cognitive interpretation of the arousal (Schachter & Singer, 1962). To interpret my cousins’ behavior more specifically my two year old cousin is still in the early years of walking, so sometimes she’ll fall. When I’m around I just make a funny noise and just say “Oh! Down goes baby!” however when her parents are around they freak out “Oh my gosh!! Are you ok?! Poor baby!!!” When using two-factor theory of emotion, my baby cousin reacts to my response with giggles and keeps on with her business because her heightened physiological arousal is cognitively interpreted as silly. When she sees her parents’ reactions she reacts to the fall with fear because she sees fear in her parents. So in reality her “bad behavior” or as I call it “excessive crying” is not because my aunt and uncle are bad parents, it’s because they worry about my cousins and their well being.
A second term I used to explain the life around me using social psychology is self-handicapping. According to Berglas and Jones (1978) people make excuses in anticipation of failure in order to still look good to others. When I read this description it made me think of a girl that we used to have on the swim team a few years back, let’s call her Amber. The first season I swam with Amber, I knew that she was a very good swimmer she was so good that she got a nationals cut and missed going to nationals by one person, although she didn’t make it I knew that she had a lot of potential left in her. The next year, I noticed that she was injured and sick more often and due to all of the illnesses she had to miss practice a lot and did not perform as well in meets. Then I began to notice a pattern, if she did well at the swim meet the following week she was at practice and continued to be well the rest of the week. However, if she performed poorly at the meet, she was sick the rest of the week and blamed her bad performance on the fact the she had been coming down with something. Another odd pattern that I noticed was her reactions to injuries and illnesses around her mother, she was always much worse when her mom was around. Her behavior continued to be like this until she graduated and no longer swam for college. I always wondered why she changed so much, I now realize that it’s because she was trying to make herself feel better about not being as good as she had been in the past.
References:
Berglas, S. and Jones E.E. (1978). Drug choice as a self-handicapping strategy in response to noncontingent success. Journal of personality and social psychology, 36, 405-417.
Schachter, S. and Singer, J. (1962). Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of the emotional state. Psychological Review, 69, 379-399.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
The bad day--- Attribution Theory.
Today I had a bad day. As a result I will use attribution theory to figure out what went wrong. More specifically I will use Kelley’s covariation theory; this theory states that in order to explain behavior we must look at all the factors involved. In order to figure out why my day went bad, I will analyze the situation and see whether there is consensus, distinctiveness and consistency. The first event of my day was that I overslept. In trying to find consensus, I’d say that others would also say that this is a bad start to the day. Therefore, it has a high level of consensus. When applying the concept of distinctiveness, I’d say that I don’t usually react to sleeping in a bad way. If we want to look at other stimuli I usually don’t act to many stimuli in a negative way. I would give today’s situation a high level of distinctiveness. Finally, to look at the consistency of the situation, I would not have thought of sleeping in as a bad thing if it had been on a different day. For example, if I had slept in on Sunday I would not have minded at all. Therefore, this situation has a low consistency and is attributed to the circumstance. Therefore, I blame my bad day on the circumstance that I overslept and I was thrown off the whole day. Hopefully, I will not sleep in again on a school day.
References:
Kelley, H.H. (1967). Attribution in social psychology. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 15, 192-238.
References:
Kelley, H.H. (1967). Attribution in social psychology. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 15, 192-238.
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