Direct and implied social restoration of freedom.

Worchel, Stephen; Brehm, Jack W.

doi:10.1037/h0031000

Cited by 125 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Finally, the effectiveness of the restoration of choice was not appreciably affected by the perception of vicarious control over the restoration, contrary to the suggestions of Grabitz-Gniech and Grabitz (1973). Thus, the data suggest that vicarious control over the restoration may not be a viable explanation for the reduction of reactance effects found by Worchel and Brehm (1971) and the lack of reduction reported by Grabitz-Gniech and Grabitz (1 973).…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 49%

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When reactance effects persist despite restoration of freedom: Investigations of time delay and vicarious control

Schwarz

1984

Euro J Social Psych

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 49%

“…When the restoration occurred after a delay of three minutes, changes in attractiveness were attenuated. However, a marginally significant reactance effect remained under these conditions despite a restoration of freedom, again contradicting the predictions of reactance theory (Worchel and Brehm, 1971).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

When reactance effects persist despite restoration of freedom: Investigations of time delay and vicarious control

Schwarz

1984

Euro J Social Psych

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“…For example, encountering a threat to freedom in a message will evoke reactance and the motivation to reassert one's freedom to disagree. As a result, people may have negative responses to the message, such as counterarguments, blanket rejections of the position, and negative perceptions of the source's credibility or attractiveness (Worchel & Brehm, 1971;Wright, 1986). The eventual disagreement may result from the recruitment of unfavorable cognitive responses, not from the initial motivation that stimulated them.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Reactance and the dynamics of disagreement: multiple paths from threatened freedom to resistance to persuasion

Silvia

2006

Euro J Social Psych

120

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Many experiments show that threats to attitudinal freedom create reactance, but the underlying dynamics of reactance-based disagreement have not received much attention. The present experiments identified two paths from threats to disagreement. In one path, threats to attitudinal freedom directly motivate disagreement; in the other, negative cognitive responses mediate the threat's effect on disagreement. Two experiments demonstrated the causes and consequences of each path from threat to persuasion. When a communicator threatened freedom at the beginning of the message, unfavorable cognitive responses (counterarguing, negative perceptions of the source's credibility) fully mediated the effect of threat on disagreement. When the threat appeared at the end of the message however, threat had a direct, unmediated effect on disagreement (Experiment 1). The two paths had different consequences for sleeper effects: disagreement rooted in negative cognitive responses persisted, whereas disagreement directly motivated by the threat declined when the threat was removed (Experiment 2). Implications for reactance and for threat-based sleeper effects are discussed. Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Reactance theory (Brehm, 1966;Brehm & Brehm, 1981;Wicklund, 1974), one of the most widely-studied theories of resistance to social influence, proposes that the motivation to maintain personal freedoms creates resistance to persuasion. According to the theory, people are motivated to restore a freedom when they perceive that it has been threatened or eliminated. Several freedoms are involved in the domain of attitude change (Brehm & Brehm, 1981, chap. 6). People feel free to hold particular attitudes, to change their attitudes, or to avoid committing to any position (e.g., Wicklund & Brehm, 1968;Worchel & Brehm, 1970). When these freedoms are threatened, people experience reactance. Attitude change is one way to restore threatened attitudinal freedom. If a communicator threatens one's freedom to disagree, then the freedom to disagree can be reasserted by disagreeing (Wright, 1986). This pattern is the well-known 'boomerang effect'-the recipient moves away from the position advocated by the communicator. Chaiken (1993) pointed out that the inner dynamics of reactance were not well understood:The issue of how reactance, the negative emotional state that ensues when freedom is threatened or eliminated, influences the processing of information remains largely unexplored. Researchers who have used reactance theory to generate predictions or to explain obtained persuasion findings have rarely included measures that may provide evidence of subjects' cognitive processing . . . .This omission is not surprising given that most research on reactance predated attitude researchers' contemporary preoccupation with underlying cognitive processes (p. 571). Brehm and Brehm (1981), in discussing unresolved issues in reactance research, makes a similar point. After noting the evidence for threat-induced boomerang effects, they ask,...

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“…In one experiment (Crawford et al, 2002), reducing the negative force-emphasizing regret associated with resistance-led to substantial agreement with a persuasive attempt (although the level of threat was not manipulated). Another experiment reduced the negative force toward resistance by having another person assert the freedom, thereby restoring the participant's freedom by implication (Worchel & Brehm, 1971, Experiment 2). People were significantly persuaded by the threatening communicator when the threat was removed by implication.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Anticipated interaction, by affecting liking and the need to interact harmoniously, should increase the reasons for compliance. Methods based on reducing resistance include making people feel incompetent to exercise a freedom (Wicklund & Brehm, 1968); having people exercise a freedom prior to the threat (Snyder & Wicklund, 1976), thus reducing the perceived magnitude of the threat; increasing the anticipation of regret that would follow reactance (Crawford, McConnell, Lewis, & Sherman, 2002); and seeing another person reassert the threatened freedom, thus reducing the threat to one's own freedom by implication (Worchel & Brehm, 1971).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Deflecting Reactance: The Role of Similarity in Increasing Compliance and Reducing Resistance

Silvia

2005

Basic and Applied Social Psychology

133

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On the basis of the approach-avoid dynamics assumed by reactance theory (S. S. Brehm & J. W. Brehm, 1981) and other models (E. S. Knowles & J. A. Linn, 2004), it was predicted that interpersonal similarity can reduce reactance by increasing compliance and by reducing resistance. A communicator's similarity to the participant was manipulated by identical first names and birthdays (Experiment 1) and by congruent values (Experiment 2). People then read essays in which the communicator did or did not threaten their attitudinal freedom. Threats caused boomerang effects only when the communicator's similarity was low or unknown. When the communicator was highly similar to the participant, people agreed strongly, regardless of threat. Similarity increased the force toward persuasion by increasing liking, and it decreased the force toward resistance by making the message seem less threatening. Implications for reactance theory and for resistance to persuasion are discussed.

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Direct and implied social restoration of freedom.

Cited by 125 publications

References 3 publications

When reactance effects persist despite restoration of freedom: Investigations of time delay and vicarious control

When reactance effects persist despite restoration of freedom: Investigations of time delay and vicarious control

Reactance and the dynamics of disagreement: multiple paths from threatened freedom to resistance to persuasion

Deflecting Reactance: The Role of Similarity in Increasing Compliance and Reducing Resistance

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