Lecture 2: Self-control

Question 1

What is chugging?

Answer 1

Charity and mugging (the people on the streets that try to persuade you to donate)

Question 2

Explain sequential request techniques

Answer 2

Influence agents often imbed their request in a scripted technique.

Those techniques often start with an initial request before the target request is opposed. That is why they are called sequential request techniques. (fundraisers never ask for money right away, there is often a warm-up)

Question 3

What are different types of scripted social influence techniques?

Answer 3

• Foot-in-the-door technique
• Door-in-the-face technique
  Lowball
• Disrupt-then-frame technique

Question 4

What is the foot-in-the-door technique?

Answer 4

Small request followed by a large request

Question 5

What is the door-in-the-face technique?

Answer 5

Large request followed by a small request

Question 6

What is the lowball technique?

Answer 6

Request in attractive light followed by actual target request after initial acceptance

Question 7

What is the disrupt-then-reframe technique?

Answer 7

Request is disrupted first, then followed by the persuasive message.

All techniques show to elicit diverse acts of benevolence (welwillendheid)

Question 8

On what basic psychological principle is the foot-in-the-door technique based?

Answer 8

On the principle of consistency (Burger, 1999).

Built on the strong tendency we have to be consistent in our behaviors.

Question 9

On what basic psychological Principe is the door-in-the-face technique based?

Answer 9

On the heuristic principle of reciprocity (Cialdini, 1993). We have a very strong tendency to return favors.

Question 10

What is self-control?

Answer 10

The basic abilities that we have as humans to actively control our emotions, thoughts and behaviors.

Question 11

What is self-control depletion/ recourse depletion / ego depletion?

Answer 11

Failure of self-control

Our ability to make mindful decisions is being taken away at the moment when we respond to the social influence technique.

Question 12

What are the two stages (hypotheses) in the two-stage model?

Answer 12

• Stage 1: the initial request or series of requests is presented to the consumer. Yielding to the initial request(s) results in self-regulatory recourse depletion. A state of low-self-regualtory resources produces the mindlessness.
• Stage 2: self-regulatory resource depletion fosters the use of heuristics that encourage yielding to the target request, thereby resulting in acts of benevolence and volunteering

Question 13

Why is self-control somewhat limited?

Answer 13

Self-control is like muscle strength or energy, it is somewhat limited.

Question 14

What does the study of the women-on-a-diet show?

Answer 14

When you perform an act of self-control (doesn’t matter what act) this will deplete your self-control resources and you have less recourses left for your second task.

Question 15

When is the foot-in-the-door most effective?

Answer 15

When the initial request is highly involving.

So the request entails active self-presentation or demand cognitive operations (or both) processes that are known to elicit self-regulatory resource depletion.

Question 16

Why does low self-control fosters compliance?

Answer 16

When people are depleted, they are more likely to use heuristics (mental-shortcuts)

Question 17

On which study is the second hypothesis based?

Answer 17

On the study from Wheeler et al. (2007)

Question 18

What does the study from Wheeler et al. (2007) show?

Answer 18

That when you are depleted and you receive a persuaded message, it doesn’t matter if the argument is strong or weak. If the request is accompanied with a ‘because’ you automatically think there is a reasoning provided.

Question 19

Name all the parts of the 2-stage model

Answer 19

stage 1: initial request(s) –> depletion –> (stage2) –> compliance ^
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Heuristics

Question 20

What is experiment 1 in the study of Tennis, Janssen & Vohs?

Answer 20

stage 1:
the foot-in-the-door technique resulted in greater self-regulatory resource depletion than being exposed to the target request only (fewer counterarguments)

Question 21

What is experiment 2 in the study of Tennis, Janssen & Vohs?

Answer 21

Stage 1:
Participants with initial request attempted fewer questions and gave fewer correct answers.

Cognitive demanding questions brought about a state of self-regulatory resource depletion

Question 22

What is experiment 3 in the study of Tennis, Janssen & Vohs?

Answer 22

Stage 1:
Participants exposed to sequential request technique that included a cognitively demanding initial request were more willing to act in future research.

Question 23

What is experiment 4 in the study of Tennis, Janssen & Vohs?

Answer 23

Stage 2:
Resource depletion was only significant in the reciprocity (wederkerigheid) condition

Availability of self-regulatory resources had no effect on compliance rate when the reciprocity principle was not salient: When reciprocity is salient, participants comply more.

Question 24

What is experiment 5 in the study of Tennis, Janssen & Vohs?

Answer 24

self-regulatory resource depletion encouraged heuristic (short-cuts) decision making.

Absence of heuristics results in equivalent compliance between depletion and no-depletion

Question 25

How did Loes in her lecture explain how they tested stage 2 of the model?

Answer 25

With the initial request control condition and landmark condition.

In both conditions they wanted to measure self-control. Gave them a puzzle that was unsolvable.

People with the initial request send less time on the puzzle and tried it less often than in the landmark condition.

Question 26

What did Loes found in her research with the text?

Answer 26

Non-depleted people didn’t matter if we did them a favor or not, compliance was equal
- Depleted people were much more compliant when favors were done

Question 27

What is acquiescence?

Answer 27

The reluctant acceptance of something without protest