Social Influence Article Review
1. Harper, J., Macdonald, G., & Nail, P. (2010). Do people use reverse psychology? An exploration of strategic self-anticonformity, Psychology Press:Social Influence, 6: 1-14. doi: 10.1080/15534510.2010.517282
2. Much research has been done focussing on social influences. An important aspect of the studies is called the compliance paradigm, which focuses on direct requests when the requester has either an equal or lower status than that of the receiver. There are three techniques that seem to be quite effective as well as falling into the compliance paradigm: foot-in-the-door (DITD), door-in-the-face (DITF), and disrupt-then-reframe (DTR). A large amount of research has also been done examining these procedures used in attempt to gain compliance. The current study examines the use of reverse psychology in everyday life. Reverse psychology is also a compliance technique, but not much has been written about it, but because it is considered an indirect form of influence which distinguishes itself from the other techniques. In this study reverse psychology is referred to as strategic self-anticonformity (SSA). By measuring the difficulty participants had recalling examples of SSA, DITD, DITF, and DTR, how successful their attempt to get the person to agree with them was for each example, and how frequently the participants use the tactic they were able to conclude that SSA is used as a social influence but then, comparing the prevalence of SSA in context with the other strategies (DITD,DITF,DTR), which had not been studied before.
3.The authors’s research questions were how persuasive is SSA as an influential tactic, and what how many of the people in the sample have actually used these strategies. The goal was to find systematic evidence of SSA being considered a legitimate tactic used in the real-world. The other goal was to compare the use of SSA reported and compare them with the previously established tactics. The results from the first study showed that
2. Much research has been done focussing on social influences. An important aspect of the studies is called the compliance paradigm, which focuses on direct requests when the requester has either an equal or lower status than that of the receiver. There are three techniques that seem to be quite effective as well as falling into the compliance paradigm: foot-in-the-door (DITD), door-in-the-face (DITF), and disrupt-then-reframe (DTR). A large amount of research has also been done examining these procedures used in attempt to gain compliance. The current study examines the use of reverse psychology in everyday life. Reverse psychology is also a compliance technique, but not much has been written about it, but because it is considered an indirect form of influence which distinguishes itself from the other techniques. In this study reverse psychology is referred to as strategic self-anticonformity (SSA). By measuring the difficulty participants had recalling examples of SSA, DITD, DITF, and DTR, how successful their attempt to get the person to agree with them was for each example, and how frequently the participants use the tactic they were able to conclude that SSA is used as a social influence but then, comparing the prevalence of SSA in context with the other strategies (DITD,DITF,DTR), which had not been studied before.
3.The authors’s research questions were how persuasive is SSA as an influential tactic, and what how many of the people in the sample have actually used these strategies. The goal was to find systematic evidence of SSA being considered a legitimate tactic used in the real-world. The other goal was to compare the use of SSA reported and compare them with the previously established tactics. The results from the first study showed that