Blog Search
Archive
Blog Statistics
  • Views: 3644308
  • Articles: 1366
  • Comments: 1027
  • Status: Public
  • Who's Viewing: 2
  • Guest
  • Guest
2 Guests  0 Members
Posted by bio_man   May 16, 2023   1215 views

A Harvard researcher, Ellen Langer (1978), studied the effects of asking someone for a favor while giving them a reason for why it was needed. Langer had an accomplice approach a line of people waiting for a copy machine in a library. The accomplice made the request to jump to the front of the line in one of three ways. One request simply stated that the accomplice had only five pages to copy, so would it be okay if they went to the front of the line. Another request also stated that they had only five pages to copy, but it also included the accomplice saying that they needed to jump to the front of the line because they were in a rush. In response to the first request, only 60 percent of those waiting in line allowed the accomplice to jump to the front. When the request included a reason, 94 percent of those asked allowed the accomplice to skip to the front of the line.

At first glance, it would appear that providing the justification of being in a rush made the difference; Langer’s experiment, however, included a third condition. In the third condition, the accomplice again indicated that they needed to make only five copies, adding this time a different reasoning to the end of the request. In this final group, the accomplice stated that they had only five copies to make and they needed to jump to the front of the line because they had to make copies. In this condition, 93 percent of the people standing in line allowed the accomplice to skip to the front. So, in spite of there being no logic to the excuse, adding an excuse influenced the persuasiveness of the accomplice and the compliance of the unknowing participants.

This is just one of many compliance tactics that can get people to agree to do things they would not normally do, or that would not be in their best interest to do (other popular techniques include the foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face, and low-ball tactic). As you'd expect, numerous techniques exist and are used by people (often salesmen) all of the time. Think about how many times you've given into a sales pitch that guaranteed you would look better and have more relationships? Have bought something just because it was recommended by an influencer you admired? Have agreed to something right after the person making the request complimented you on your looks or intelligence? The more informed you are of these tactics, the less you will fall victim to them.

Source Langer, E.J. (1978). Rethinking the Role of Thought in Social Interaction. New Directions in Attribution Research, Vol. 2. Harvey, Ickes, and Kidd (Eds.). Potomac, MD: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Posted in Interesting Facts
No Comments | Write Comment
Random Article
   RSS Feed     Atom Feed     RDF Feed