Power of Requests

Outline

• Orne Technique

• Darley/Batson Situation

• Research developments

• Discussion/applications

Orne Technique

• Research participation

• Extreme compliance

• Orne interested in hypnosis– Compliant under hypnosis?– Needed baseline

Orne Technique

• E1, 2,000 x 244, watch/return– Result

• E2– You are to tear up the sheet of paper which you have

just completed into a minimum of thirty-two pieces and go on to the next sheet of paper and continue working as you did before; when you have completed this piece of paper, pick up the next card which will instruct you further. Work as accurately and as rapidly as you can (Orne, 1962, p. 777)

– Result• Compliance/ post-ex subj.

Orne Technique

• Technique sequence– Interactional context– Commencement of interaction– Request– Cost cues– Scheduling– Compliance test– Opportunity to respond

Orne Technique

• Interactional context and preliminary interaction– Participants at pre-screening– Object

• “Personally serving in this study as a participant”

– Attitude toward participation• Social good, curiosity, credit/money, benefits, meet

researchers, approval (Ronow & Rosenthal, 1997)

Orne Technique

• Context (continued)– Self-selection

• Commitment– Decision-to-action shift

• Jones & Gerard, 1967; Gollwitzer, 1990; Milgram, 1974– New attitudes

• Achievement• Consistency• Trust (“blank cheque”)

– Overall attitude• Valence, strength, degree of ambivalence• Cognition, affect, behavioral leaning

– Period of latency

Orne Technique

• Commencement of interaction– Arrival

• Performance-motivated participant• Skill test

Orne Technique

• Making requests– Attitude (cog, aff, beh)– Requests

• Task• Persistence

– Elaboration of attitude• Cog, aff, beh

Orne Technique

• Cost cues– Long session length– Low balling– Attitudes

• Post-commitment– Attitudes got stronger

– Perception of object• Low choice request• Full cost magnitude not fully revealed• After performance began

– Performance orientation (‘bus trip’), investment, distance to gain

Orne Technique

• Deadline and compliance test– Schedule

• Start, end (“Continue to work; I will return eventually.”), 2000 sheets, watch

– Compliance tests• Persistence• Sheets

Orne Technique

• Opportunity to respond– Setting– Time

Orne Technique

• Conclusions– High compliance

• (Langer 2% of Orne)

– Factors in request strength• Secure commitment• Manage perception of object• Get behavior going• (compare to Langer)

Hints as Requests

• Can hints work as requests– Language– Nonverbal communication– Undirected communication

• Potential advantages of hint techniques

• Darley/Batson 1973– Good Samaritan– Implications for understanding compliance

Hints as Requests

• Seminarians– pretested

• Travel to speech site– Three hurry conditions– Speech– Religious orientation

• Encounter with victim– Help in low, medium, and high hurry was 10%, 45%, and 68%,

respectively– Otherwise, no effects significant

• Compliance with experimenter– 100%

Hints as Requests

• Interactional context and prior interaction– Selection of participants– Recruitment request, self-section– Selection of context

• Lab, alleyway

– Two relationships• w. experimenter• w. victim (confederate)

– Pre-experimental attitude• As per Orne 1962• Attitude toward helping

Hints as Requests

• Commencement of interaction– Experimental task– Encounter with victim

• Notice?• Interpretation• Attitude

Hints as Requests

• Request adds behavioral detail– Experimental task clear– Confederate

• No direct instructions• Not necessarily needed• Attitude

– Cog, aff., behavioral readiness

Hints as Requests

• Morality cue– Type of speech– Worked minimally

• Helping self-evident course?• Help whom?• Failed to arouse empathy?• Priest and Levite modeled passing by? (e.g.,

Hockey Canada ads)

Hints as Requests

• Scheduling/compliance test– Experimental task

• Clear schedule and deadlines• Travel time was manipulated

– Confederate task• Somewhat ambiguous

Hints as Requests

• Opportunity to Act– Low hurry

• Limited conflict, high opportunity-both sources• Result—considerable compliance with victim

– Medium hurry• More conflict• High compliance with experimenter• Less with victim

– High hurry• High conflict• High with experimenter• Low with victim

Hints as Requests

• Why high compliance with victim in low conflict?– Object

• Fairly clear

– Attitude• Sufficient elaboration

Hints as Requests

• Why high compliance with experimenter?– High attitude-behavior consistency– Completely trumped victim technique

Hints as Requests

• Why did victim technique lose out under high conflict?– Situation with the victim in high hurry condition

• Low attitude-behavior correspondence• Object

– Stimulus could have eluded attention• Attitude

– Cognition: composing behavioral plan difficult, no time to implement, pass-by plans available (diffusion)

– Affect: no time to develop empathy– Behavior: knowledge of first aid

– Situation with experimenter in high hurry condition• High attitude-behavior correspondence

– No one acted heroically

Hints as Requests

• Hints can work if– They give rise to targeted perception of object– People have the targeted attitude– There is no desirable competing activity in

progress at the same time– Example—Telus Mobility animal commercials

Figure 3.1: Factors in social influence. Boxes made up of solid lines represent situational factors in influence. These can be manipulated by the influence source in his or her attempt to alter the conduct of the influence recipient. All of the external factors must be present before influence can occur. Boxes composed in dotted lines represent cognitions that must be changed to make influence possible.

Context

BehaviorAttitude

Interaction

Perception of object

Opportunity

Compliance test

Consequences

Request Power

• Discussion– Applications