240 Chapter 7This idea was shown in a now-classic
dyadic interaction study conducted by Carli
(1989). Men and women were placed in
same-sex or mixed-sex dyads and asked
to talk about an issue with which they dis-
agreed. Participants’ opinions on lowering
the drinking age and providing free day care
for working parents were obtained prior to
creating the dyads so that disagreement on
the issue could be assured. The pair then
discussed the topic for 10 minutes. One of
the partners in each dyad was randomly as-
signed to try to persuade the partner to her
or his point of view. The discussion was vid-
eotaped and later coded for number of task
contributions (giving suggestions or opin-
ions), agreements, disagreements, questions,
negative social behaviors (showing negative
affect), and positive social behaviors (show-
ing positive affect; see Table 7.3 for examples
of codes). After the discussion, each member
of the dyad indicated privately what his or
her opinion was on the topic. The change in
opinion from before to after the discussion
was the measure of influence.
Neither task behavior nor positive so-
cial behavior was related to attitude change.Disagreement was related tolessattitude
change, or less influence. The only interac-
tion style associated with greater influence
was agreement. People who interacted with
a partner who expressed at least some agree-
ment were more likely to change their at-
titudes in the direction of the partner than
people who interacted with a partner who
expressed complete disagreement.
At first glance, this may seem counter-
intuitive—agreement leads to more influence
and disagreement leads to less influence? We
are more receptive to the ideas of someone
who finds a way to agree with us; disagree-
ment puts us on the defensive. Our intuition
is to disagree with someone to try to change
the person’s mind. When people were ran-
domly assigned to the condition in which
they had to persuade their partners, they
used more disagreement, less agreement, and
more task behavior—but only with males,
not with females. Unfortunately, this is ex-
actly opposite of the kind of behavior that
is persuasive. Thus, it is not surprising that
women and men were more successful in
persuading females than males; women and
men were more likely to agree with females.TABLE 7.3 SAMPLE INTERACTION STYLES
Task Behavior
“You should ask your roommate not to drink in your room.”
Agreement
“I agree that alcoholism is an important problem in our society.”
Disagreement
“I disagree that lowering the drinking age will solve any of our problems.”
Questions
“Why do you think lowering the drinking age would decrease rates of alcoholism?”
Negative Social Behaviors
“If you think it is OK to drink any alcohol and drive, then you are an idiot.”
Positive Social Behavior
“We all have to figure out how to deal with people who drink and drive.”M07_HELG0185_04_SE_C07.indd 240 6/21/11 8:11 AM