(Mis)Understanding Our Influence Over Others

Abstract

I review a burgeoning program of research examining people’s perceptions of their influence over others. This research demonstrates that people are overly pessimistic about their ability to get others to comply with their requests. Participants in our studies have asked more than 14,000 strangers a variety of requests. We find that participants underestimate the likelihood that the people they approach will comply with their requests. This error is robust (it persists across various samples and requests) and substantial (on average, requesters underestimate compliance by 48%). We find that this error results from requesters’ failure to appreciate the awkwardness of saying “no” to a request. In addition to reviewing evidence for the underestimation-of-compliance effect and its underlying mechanism, I discuss some factors that have been found to strengthen, attenuate, and reverse the effect. This research offers a starting point for examining a neglected perspective in influence research: the psychological perspective of the influence source.

The polite wiggle‐room effect in charity donation decisions

“…Furthermore, politeness may also decrease the likelihood of a donation because it makes it easier to say no, rather than 'giving in' to social pressure (Flynn & Lake, 2008;Bohns, 2016). This may be especially true for face-to-face encounters, though, which are not the focus of the current article.…”

“…Polite requests show consideration for the feelings of listeners, and treat them as autonomous by showing that the decision is theirs to make. In daily life, we tend to avoid directives in favor of more polite requests (Holtgraves & Yang, 1990), and for a good reason: we believe that polite requests are more likely to be granted than requests phrased as directives (Bohns, 2016).…”

The Role of the Face Itself in the Face Effect: Sensitivity, Expressiveness, and Anticipated Feedback in Individual Compliance

“…Particularly, we showed that inexpressiveness, with either blank faces or untimely facial expressions, mitigates the face effect in the “sending” stage. This increases our understanding from the perspective of requesters (e.g., nonprofit organizations, service staff, and salespeople), which is largely neglected in the social influence research (Bohns, 2016). Therefore, our findings provide important insights into the burgeoning research of individual perceptions of their social influence on others (Roghanizad and Bohns, 2017), as well as present valuable contributions to studies on individual compliance, facial expressions, and communications.…”

“…Bohns (2016) suggests that awkwardness from saying no to requests drives many compliance decisions. In fact, social influence can occur even when others are anticipated to be present, not physically present, and imagined or anticipated social disapproval drives this effect (Modigliani, 1971).…”

Power and perceived influence: I caused your behavior, but I'm not responsible for it

“…It is hard to imagine what we ourselves would feel and do in a given situation, let alone what another person with different motives, life experiences, and beliefs is likely to feel and do (Epley, Keysar, Van Boven, & Gilovich, 2004;Van Boven & Loewenstein, 2003;Van Boven, Loewenstein, & Dunning, 2005;Van Boven, Loewenstein, Dunning, & Nordgren, 2013). One consequence of these challenges of perspective-taking is that people consistently find it difficult to appreciate how hard it is for others to say "no" to social pressure (Bohns, 2016;Bohns et al, 2011;Bohns, Newark, & Xu, 2016;Bohns, Roghanizad, & Xu, 2014;Flynn & Lake (Bohns), 2008;Newark, Flynn, & Bohns, 2014). That is, people tend to underestimate the strong pressure others feel to avoid an awkward encounter and/or conform to social norms of agreement; as a result, people assume it is easier for someone to choose to do otherwise in a situation involving social influence than it actually is.…”