Continuation of Chapter 7 Flashcards
door in the face
An individual makes an initial request
that is so large it is sure to be rejected and then comes back with a second more
reasonable request. Will the second request fare better after the first one has been
declined?
ap? One possibility involves the principle of perceptual contrast: To the person exposed to a very
large initial request, the second request “seems smaller.” Tw
Two dollars’ worth of
candy bars is not bad compared with ten dollars for circus tickets. Likewise, taking a group of kids to the zoo seems trivial compared with two years of volunteer
work. As intuitively sensible as this explanation seems, Cialdini and others (1975)
concluded that perceptual contrast is only partly responsible for the effect. When
participants only heard the large request without actually having to reject it, their
rate of compliance with the second request (25%) was only slightly larger than
the 17% rate of compliance exhibited by those who heard only the small request.
A more compelling explanation for the effect involves the notion of reciprocal concessions. what are they?
A close cousin of the reciprocity norm, this refers to the pressure
to respond to changes in a bargaining position. When an individual backs down
from a large request to a smaller one, we view that move as a concession that
we should match by our own compliance. Thus, the door-in-the-face technique
does not work if the second request is made by a different person (Cialdini et al.,
1975). Nor does it work if the first request is so extreme that it comes across as an
insincere “first offe
e that’s-not-all technique,
when u add something to sweeten the deal
see sequential request strategies on pg 321
ok lol
According to Cialdini, being able to resist compliance pressures rests, first and
foremost, on being …
vigilant. u should be able to recognize when someone is trying to get you to buy somehting.
what happens if people feel manipulated
. People don’t like
to be hustled. In fact, feeling manipulated typically leads us to react with anger,
psychological reactance, and stubborn noncompliance—unless the request is a
command and the requester is a figure of authority
when do ploys like flattery and gifts not work
Flattery, gifts, and other
ploys often win compliance, but not if perceived as insincere (Jones, 1964) or if
the target has a high level of reciprocity wariness (Eisenberger et al., 1987). Likewise, sequential request traps are powerful only to the extent that they are subtle
and cannot be seen for what they are (
For many years, the ethics of this research has been the focus of much debate. Those who say it was not ethical point to 1. In contrast, those who believe
that these experiments met appropriate ethical standards emphasize the 2
1the potential psychological harm
to which Milgram’s participants were exposed
2profound
contribution it has made to our understanding of human nature and an important
social problem. They conclude that on balance, the danger that destructive obedience poses for all humankind justified Milgram’s unorthodox methods
the psychological experiment like milgrams
Rather than order participants
to inflict physical pain on someone, however, they ordered them to cause psychological harm.. On
cue, the applicant pleaded with participants to stop, became angry, faltered, and
eventually fell into a state of despair and failed. As in Milgram’s research, the
question was straightforward: How many participants would obey orders through
the entire set of 15 stress remarks, despite the apparent harm caused to a reallife job applicant? In a control group that lacked a prodding experimenter, no
one persisted. But when the experimenter ordered them to go on, 92% exhibited
complete obedience despite seeing the task as unfair and distasteful. It appears
that obedience is a powerful aspect of human nature brought about by the docile
manner in which people relate to figures of authority—even today.
In a more
Then there is the moral question: By providing a situational explanation for the
evils of Nazi Germany or modern-day terrorism, do social psychologists unwittingly
excuse the perpetrators? Does focusing on situational forces let them off the hook
of responsibility?
Since many of Milgram’s participants were disobedient, indicating
that they were free to choose resistance, one would hope not. Andrew Monroe and
Glenn Reeder (2014) note that observers integrate information about the participant,
his or her behavior, and the situation, in a manner that accounts for the subtle nature of the participant’s motives in light of the dilemma, “as caught between wanting to help the learner and wanting to placate the experimenter” (p
In a series of studies, Miller and others (1999) found that after people were
asked to come up with explanations for acts of wrongdoing, they tended to be
more forgiving of those who committed the acts and they were seen as more
forgiving by others.
This appearance of forgiveness was certainly not Milgram’s
intent, nor is it the intent of other researchers today who seek to understand human cruelty, even while continuing to condemn it. Miller and his colleagues were
thus quick to caution, “To explain is not to forgive”
unity in groups and one study
In addition to the role of social networking media, recent studies indicate that for
better or for worse, synchrony of behavior—for example, walking in step with others,
clapping, singing, chanting, or raising arms in unison—can have a unifying effect on
people, increasing the tendency to follow what others are doing. In one study, pairs of
participants were seated in rocking chairs, side by side, and asked to rock in unison.
Other pairs also rocked, but they could not see each other and were not in rhythm.
Those in the synchrony condition were later more “in synch” when working jointly to
move a steel ball through a wooden maze (Valdesolo et al., 2010). Other studies have
shown that acting in unison with others can also increase our tendency to feel socially connected, cooperate for the common good, and even comply with a request to
aggress against another person
william gamsons study (in obedience) results
1 of 33 groups even came close to following the script. In all others, people were
incensed by the coordinator’s behavior and refused to continue. Some groups were
so outraged that they planned to take action. One group even threatened to blow
One key difference is that people in Milgram’s studies took part
1
1alone and those in Gamson’s were in groups. Perhaps Michael Walzer was right:
“Disobedience, when it is not criminally but morally, religiously, or politically
motivated, is always a collective act
