Handbook of Psychology, Volume 5, Personality and Social Psychology

(John Hannent) #1

392 Social Influence and Group Dynamics


1961), and in accordance with the affinity principle, they are
inclined to respond affirmatively to requests from similar
others as well. The similarity effect encompasses a wide
range of dimensions, including opinions, background,
lifestyle, and personality traits (Cialdini & Trost, 1998). Even
similarity in nonverbal cues, such as posture, mood, and
verbal style, has been observed to increase compliance
(LaFrance, 1985; Locke & Horowitz, 1990; Woodside &
Davenport, 1974). The effect of similarity is quite pervasive,
having been demonstrated across a wide range of variation in
age, cultural background, socioeconomic status, opinion top-
ics, and relationship types (cf. Baron & Byrne, 1994).
The power of similarity to elicit compliance has been
observed even when the dimension of similarity is decidedly
superficial in nature. Sometimes outward manifestations
of similarity such as clothing are all that are required.
Emswiller, Deaux, and Willits (1971), for example, arranged
for confederates to dress as either “straight” or “hippie” and
had them ask fellow college students for a dime to make a
phone call. When the confederate and target subject were sim-
ilar in their respective attire, compliance was observed over
two thirds of the time. When the confederate-target pair dif-
fered in clothing type, however, less than half of the students
volunteered the dime. In a related vein, Suedfeld, Bochner,
and Matas (1971) observed that if antiwar protestors were
asked by a similarly dressed confederate to sign a petition,
they tended to do so without even reading the petition. Auto-
matic compliance to the requests of others perceived to be
similar has a decidedly nonthinking quality to it. The very au-
tomaticity of the similarity principle, however, may have im-
portant adaptive significance. By using this heuristic to make
quick decisions regarding compliance requests, people can
allocate their valuable but limited mental resources to other
types of judgment and decision-making situations defined in
terms of ambiguous, conflicting, or complex information.


Esteem and Affinity


Perhaps even more basic than our propensity to do things for
those we like is our need to be liked by those we know (cf.
G. W. Allport, 1939; Baumeister, 1982; Tesser, 1988). To be
sure, for some people the desire to be liked can be overridden
by other motives, such as the need for acceptance (Rudich &
Vallacher, 1999) or desires to be seen accurately (Trope,
1986) or in accordance with one’s personal self-view
(Swann, 1990). For most people most of the time, however, it
is hard to resist the allure of flattery. Receiving positive feed-
back from someone is highly rewarding and tends to promote
a reciprocal exchange with the source. In other words, we
like others who seem to like us. When activated in this way,


the affinity principle makes the recipient of flattery a poten-
tial target for influence by the flatterer.
Flattery has a long history as an effective compliance tech-
nique, both inside and outside the laboratory (cf. Carnegie,
1936/1981; Cialdini, 2001). Drachman, DeCarufel, and Insko
(1978), for example, arranged for men to receive positive or
negative comments from a person in need of a favor. The per-
son offering praise alone was liked most, even if the targets
knew that the flatterer stood to gain from their liking them.
Moreover, inaccurate compliments were just as effective as
accurate compliments in promoting the target’s affinity for
the flatterer. So influence agents need not bother gathering
facts to support their complimentary onslaught; simply ex-
pressing positive comments may be sufficient to woo the tar-
get and thereby gain his or her compliance. At the same time,
however, the ingratiator’s dilemma (Jones, 1964) discussed
earlier sets limits on the effectiveness of the esteem principle.
In particular, praise and other forms of ingratiation (e.g.,
opinion conformity with the target) can backfire if the ingra-
tiator’s ulterior motives are readily transparent and the praise
is seen as solely manipulative. And, of course, the influence
agent can simply overdo the flattery and come across as disin-
genuous and obsequious.

Manipulation Through Scarcity

From childhood on, we want what we lack—be it toys,
money, fancy cars, or greener grass. The cache of the unat-
tainable, for example, is a sure bet to spark competition and
fuel sales in commercial settings. Cries of today and today
onlyandin limited quantitieshave been known to drive shop-
pers like lemmings toward the blue-light special, and con-
venient Christmastime shortages of Tickle Me Elmos or
Furbees stoke the fires of demand for such toys. We may
see ourselves as impervious to such base tactics, but the
power of the human tendency to view scarcity as an indicator
of worth or desirability is undeniable, well-documented—
and routinely exploited as a method of securing compliance
(cf. Cialdini, 2001).
It’s interesting in this regard to consider the tendency for
efforts at censorship to backfire, creating a stronger demand
than ever for the forbidden fruit. The prohibition of alcohol
in the 1920s, for example, only whetted people’s appetite for
liquor and spawned the rise of secret establishments (the
speakeasy) that provided access to the scarce commodity.
Antipornography crusades typically have the same effect, in-
creasing interest in the banned books and magazines, even
among people who might not otherwise consider this particu-
lar genre. Telling people they cannot read or see something
can increase—or even create—a desire to take a proverbial
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