Changes in Self‐Perceptions as a Result of Successfully Persuading Others

Abstract

Can we change other people without changing ourselves as well? To test this question, participants used one of three techniques-door-in-the-face, authoritative influence, and rational arguments-to convince a confederate to attend a campus meeting that favored an issue opposed by the confederate, but supported by the subject. Following the confederate's compliance, participants evaluated their perceptions of their performance and the performance of the confederate. Participants using rational arguments described themselves as intelligent and friendly, participants using authoritative influence described themselves as dominant and unfriendly, and participants using door-in-the-face described themselves as submissive. As predicted from an earlier study (O'Neal, Kipnis, & Craig, 1994), the use of the three influence techniques also caused systematic changes in participants' evaluations of the target. Because the use of certain behavior techniques (e.g., controlling, deceptive) can cause users to devalue themselves and others, it is recommended that ethical safeguards governing the use of these techniques should be considered.For more than a half a century, applied social psychology has been concerned with the development of technologies that change people's attitudes and behavior. By technology, we mean the use of systematic procedures to produce intended effects. Not surprisingly, behavior technologies and social power are closely related. This is because behavior technologies are designed to make people do things they would ordinarily not do. Stated in Dahl's (1957) description of social power, behavior technologies give new direction to people's behavior.

New Ways to Promote Proenvironmental Behavior: Expanding and Evaluating Motives for Environmentally Responsible Behavior

“…When the intervention does not constrain freedom to think and decide, the user of the technique will have a more positive evaluation of the recipient. Rind and Kipnis (1999) also report that the use of strong intervention techniques results in the user's having significantly lower self-perceptions.…”

“…Even a successful behavior change intervention, one that effectively alters the target behavior, can negatively alter the user's perceptions in two ways: contempt for those people he is influencing and self-contempt. In the former case, the more an intervention restricts the recipient's choice of how to respond to an issue, the more the user of that technique will have a negative perception of the recipient (O'Neal, Kipnis, & Craig, 1994;Rind & Kipnis, 1999). When the intervention does not constrain freedom to think and decide, the user of the technique will have a more positive evaluation of the recipient.…”

Explaining the nature of power: a three-process theory

“…Kipnis (1972), for example, defines 'power' as something like coercion in our terms in contrast to a supposed 'no-power' condition of persuasion and authority. He actually shows therefore that the effects of holding power vary with the type of power process (as do Rind & Kipnis, 1999).…”

“…Power is an emergent property of human social relationships, not something that stands outside of them, and power relations can take as many concrete and nuanced forms as the social relationships they express. If one looks at the evidence for the supposed generic effects of holding power we find that these effects are either restricted to just one kind of power process or disappear as soon as the values, beliefs, goals of the powerful are varied and/or the nature of the social relationship is varied (Dépret & Fiske, 1999;Kipnis, 1972;Lee-Chai, Chen, & Chartrand, 2001;Overbeck & Park, 2001;Reynolds, Oakes, Haslam, Nolan, & Dolnik, 2000;Rind & Kipnis, 1999;Stott & Drury, 2004;cf. Ellemers, van Rijswik, Bruins, & de Gilder, 1998).…”

The Door-in-the-Face Persuasive Message Strategy: A Meta-Analysis of the First 35 Years

“…Five articles were excluded as an effect size could not be computed due to a failure to include a pure DITF condition (combining DITF with foot-in-the-door procedure; Fointiat, 2000), lack of a control group (Higgins, 2003), use of an alternate dependent variable (self-perception of the requester; Rind & Kipnis, 1999), or failure to report compliance rates associated with each condition (Carter-Sowell, Chen, & Williams, 2008;Goldman, McVeigh, & Richterkessing, 1984). One article from O'Keefe and Hale (1998) was considered a misrepresentation of the DITF technique (Grace, Bell, & Sugar, 1988) and one unpublished article (Collins & Brady, 1994) could not be obtained.…”