Exam 8: Social Influence and Persuasion

In one well-known social psychological experiment, research participants were brought into a dark room where an experimenter projected dots of light. These dots of light appeared to move slightly as they were projected-though exactly how far they moved the participants couldn't say. When asked to estimate the distance that the light traveled, participants tended to look to others in the room, and ask them what they thought. All of the participants thus ended up giving somewhat similar answers-thereby establishing ____.

Communications that are fear-based (e.g., messages about the dangers of smoking) are not always effective. They tend to be most effective when they elicit ____, and least effective when they elicit ____.

In one study, one group of homeowners was asked if they would put a small sign on their doors that said, "BE A SAFE DRIVER." Another group of homeowners was not asked to display this sign. Then, a few weeks later, everyone in both groups was asked if a large, poorly lettered sign stating, "DRIVE CAREFULLY," could be displayed in their yard. Most people who had received and granted the first request were quite willing to have the larger sign in their yard. In contrast, those who had not had the first request with the small sign tended to say "no" to displaying the larger sign. This study was about which social influence technique?

The limited-number technique is a persuasive technique based upon the principle of ________________.

Describe the major results from Hovland's research program on persuasion.

The negative emotional response of ____ often precedes negative attitude change.

Mark has been attending a religious study with friends from his dorm. He really likes these people, although he thinks that their interpretation of the sacred text is dead wrong. Yet in the meetings, he tends to agree with them to avoid conflict because he enjoys their friendship so much. Mark is most likely experiencing ____.

Suppose that you are having a garage sale, and have decided to negotiate with buyers rather than display fixed prices. Your technique is to quote an astronomically high price (e.g., $500 for a broken exercise bicycle), and then "bargain" by coming down to a lower, more reasonable price. You hope that the lower price will then appear to be supremely fair. You are apparently using the ____.

In some military prisons, soldiers use, among other tactics, both sleep deprivation and repeated exposure to annoying music, in an effort to "break" prisoners' resistance and convince them to answer questions. These soldiers are apparently operating under the assumption that ____ makes people more yielding.

A university professor from Rome invited Francesco Schettino, the former skipper of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, to give a two-hour lecture on the topic of "best emergency practices." In this case, Schettino was not a(n) ____ source of information.

According to the text, fear-based messages (e.g., messages about the dangers of smoking) are almost always highly effective.

Compared to people with low intelligence, people with moderately high levels of intelligence tend to be ____ when they encounter persuasive messages.

Even though most people say that they voted for Barack Obama because of his policies, some people may have voted for him because he is physically attractive. This illustrates ____.

How can a person defend against social influence techniques based on capturing and disrupting attention?

People are more likely to buy cupcakes when they are described as "halfcakes, priced at a bargain price," as opposed to when they are simply described as "cupcakes." This is an example of people being influenced via the ____.

As part of a tenth-grade "Social Living" course, a teacher has a guest speaker come to his classroom to talk about the dangers of drug use. The guest speaker is a former drug dealer and hardcore drug user, who became involved in crime as a result of his connection to drugs, spent many years in jail, later entered a drug rehabilitation program, and finally cleaned up his act. Social psychologists would refer to this kind of communicator as a(n) ____.

Preceding a request to someone with a smaller request to which they are very likely to agree is a good way to get them to say yes to the second, more important request. This strategy is known as the ____.

Psychologists who study persuasion use the term "yielding" to refer to whether a person ____.

In the terminology of the elaboration likelihood model, people relying on automatic, nonconscious processing are using the ____ route.

Identify and briefly describe three different persuasion techniques based on the principles of consistency and/or commitment.