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From page 1... ... Arguments can be made for the efficacy of matching attitudes, making eye contact, role reversal (in which one feeds back to the other her perspective in a quarrel) , and the like. Read the entire page →
From page 2... ... Third, matching increases influence, a point that can be derived from the first two assertions. Matching of Personal Characteristics Similarity and Attraction A voluminous body of research has examined the link between similarity on dimensions such as attractiveness, attitudes, and personality characteristics and liking. Read the entire page →
From page 3... ... 3 extent of attitude similarity predicted the degree to which people were attracted to each other after several months of association. Laboratory experiments involving the manipulation of perceived attitudes also provide consistent support for the hypothesis that people tend to like others whose attitudes seem similar to theirs (see Berscheid and Walster, 1969; 1978; Byrne, 1971; for reviews) Read the entire page →
From page 4... ... . The effect of attitude similarity on attraction appears to be most important at the beginning of a relationship (Berscheid, 1985~. Read the entire page →
From page 5... ... of personalities will increase liking (e.g. t Ajzen' 1974; Hoffman and Mater/ 1966; Meyer and Pepper, 1977; Murstein, 1976) Read the entire page →
From page 6... ... Berscheid (1985) notes that attitude similarity may have either positive or negative implications, although positive implications are probably more common. Read the entire page →
From page 7... ... 7 Matching of attributes that define or create social categories, such as religion or ethnicity, may increase liking by creating a sense of shared group membership. According to Heider (1958) Read the entire page →
From page 8... ... outgroup, or "unit relation," may be created by matching people on virtually any attribute, however trivial. In summary, many types of similarity, but especially attitude similarity, lead to increased attraction under most circumstances. Read the entire page →
From page 9... ... Empirical evidence that liking increases influence has been provided in several studies (Eagly and Chaiken, 1975; Sampson and Insko, 1964; Schuler, 1982; Tannenbaum, 1956~. Attractive communicators are particularly influential when they advocate undesirable positions (Eagly and Chaiken, 1975~. Read the entire page →
From page 10... ... , persuasion occurs via the central route when recipients are involved in the the contents of the message, that is, when the message has personal consequences for them. Persuasion occurs by the peripheral route when they are uninvolved, that is, when the message does not have personal consequences for them. Read the entire page →
From page 11... ... For subjects in the low involvement condition, the policy would be instituted several years after they graduated. For subjects in the high involvement condition, the quality and number of arguments presented determined their agreement with the message, but source characteristics had no effect. Read the entire page →
From page 12... ... To date, research suggests that liking for a communicator matters most when the message recipient is uninvolved in the issue, when the arguments are weak, or when the position advocated is undesirable. Effects of Similarity on Influence We have provided qualified evidence for two points regarding similarity in personal attributes: first, similar others are often liked more than dissimilar others, and second, liked others tend to be more influential than disliked others. Read the entire page →
From page 13... ... 13 Two types of similarity between communicator and recipient have been investigated in studies of the effects of source similarity on persuasion. One is similarity on the issue in question, that is, the extent to which the position advocated by the communicator is similar to the position already held by the message recipient. Read the entire page →
From page 14... ... In summary, research suggests that, ho1 cling credibility constant, similar communicators are more persuasive than dissimilar communicators, probably because they are more attractive. The research reviewed in the previous section suggests that dissimilar communicators may be more ~ influential when their dissimilarity gives them credibility. Read the entire page →
From page 15... ... . According to Sherif and Hoviand's social judgment model, then, neither matching nor mismatching of an opinion advocated by a message and the recipient's opinion is effective as a social influence strategy. Read the entire page →
From page 16... ... Summary and Conclusions The research reviewed in this section suggests that matching another's attitudes may be an effective strategy of social influence. Attitude matching results in increased liking which, in turn, increases influence. Read the entire page →
From page 17... ... The literature on nonverbal behavior indicates that matching may occur in three major areas; eye contact, interactional synchrony, and other nonverbal conversational behavior (e.g., duration of pauses, interruptions) Read the entire page →
From page 18... ... This increases influence to the extent that the other is dependent on the person who is making the eye contact. Evidence that eye contact can increase liking is provided in a study by Breed et al., (1972~. Read the entire page →
From page 19... ... Recipients may interpret eye contact either as a manipulative strategy or an attempt at affiliation (Kendon, 1967~. Whether eye contact indicates attempts to be friendly or to dominate appears to depend on the nature of the interaction (Druckman et al., 1982~. Read the entire page →
From page 20... ... Increased liking of one party for another may increase the other's influence in cooperative situations, whereas increased dominance of one party over another may increase the party's influence in competitive situations. Research showing that people engage in more eye contact when instructed to be persuasive (Mehrabian and Williams, 1969) Read the entire page →
From page 21... ... Interactional Synchrony A second type of matching of nonverbal behavior that may occur during interaction is interactional synchrony. This is defined as precise, harmonious changes in the direction of body movement between speaker and listener. Read the entire page →
From page 22... ... However, there is as yet no empirical evidence on the effects of interactional synchrony on liking or influence. It is not clear whether participants in a conversation are aware of interactional synchrony when it occurs. Read the entire page →
From page 23... ... As with interactional synchrony, they may produce increased rapport. Alternatively' as with eye contact! Read the entire page →
From page 24... ... . However, if the positions of the interactants are mutually exclusive, then role reversal results in less appreciation of the other's position than if each party simply presents his or her own position (Johnson, 1967~. Read the entire page →
From page 25... ... . The PRS of an individual is purported to be revealed both in the verbal content of his speech and in eye movements. Read the entire page →
From page 26... ... Matching clients' representational systems verbally and nonverbally is hypothesized, like accurate role reversal, to give the impression that the therapist is seeing the world the way their clients do (Grinder & Bandler, 1976) Read the entire page →
From page 27... ... . However, it should be noted that matching a person's most recently used representational system may or may not involve matching her preferred representational system (PRS) Read the entire page →
From page 28... ... Hence, it is yet to be determined whether NLP theory is something new, or merely a reinvention of the wheel. Read the entire page →
From page 29... ... However, NLP is being taught at seminars for psychotherapists across the nation, suggesting that evaluation of the effectiveness of these seminars is needed. In the event that further research supports the assumptions and effectiveness of NLP theory, it would be interesting to determine the effects of matching PRS in relationships other than the client-therapist interaction. Read the entire page →
From page 30... ... Research on matching of attitudes and nonverbal behaviors is especially consistent with this conclusion. Another mechanism by which matching may increase influence is by increasing the credibility of the matcher. Read the entire page →
From page 31... ... However, considerable attempts at social influence occur outside of direct persuasion contexts,~and the likeability and credibility of the communicator may have more impact in these other contexts. Research on role playing in competitive (negotiation) Read the entire page →
From page 32... ... These points will be discussed in the two main subsections of this section. The mechanisms by which reciprocity leads to influence are quite different from those by which substantive matching leads to influence. Read the entire page →
From page 33... ... . The instrumental learning paradigm is a simple case of reciprocity, with the trainer providing reward in exchange for cooperation and/or punishment in exchange for noncooperation. Read the entire page →
From page 34... ... Cooperative behavior (C) would be loaning a tool when needed, noncooperative behavior (D) Read the entire page →
From page 35... ... It seems reasonable to assume that attraction mediates these relationships in that perceived similarity produces attraction (Berscheid and Walster, 1969, 1978; Byrne, 1971; Newcomb, 1961) and attraction encourages cooperation in the PD (McC1intock et al., lg70; Swingle and Gillis, 1968; Oskamp and Perlman, 1966) Read the entire page →
From page 36... ... One dimension is that negotiation and PD settings usually involve mutually acknowledged divergence of interest, while learning settings do not. Another dimension is that the parties are trying to reach agreement in negotiation, while they are not in learning and PD settings. Read the entire page →
From page 37... ... Another way to put this is that these expectations should lead people to cooperate whenever they regard mutual cooperation as more valuable than mutual noncooperation. If the participants are perceptive, the latter condition will obtain in the PD, because R ~ P for both parties. Read the entire page →
From page 38... ... Two efforts have been made to test the three explanations just given in the realm of negotiation. Both are damaging to the automatic reinforcement explanation. Read the entire page →
From page 39... ... , more concessions were made by negotiators who had previously watched-their opponent follow a reciprocal strategy than those who had watched him concede rapidly or hardly at alla These results cannot be explained by automatic reinforcement, since the subjects observed rather than experienced their opponent's reciprocity. Some cognitive process that involved an image of the opponent almost certainly was involved. Read the entire page →
From page 40... ... may be more appropriate for that setting. Conditions Affecting the Success of Reciprocity Reciprocity is more effective in some conditions than others. Read the entire page →
From page 41... ... Reciprocity seems tube most effective when it fits an a priori notion (a causal schema) held by the other party "about the types of causes that ought to be linked to particular types of effects' (Nisbett and Ross, 1980:115~. Read the entire page →
From page 42... ... Hence it should be especially clear to the other that he faces a choice between mutual cooperation and mutual noncooperation. An example would be the familiar case where a tenant (the other) Read the entire page →
From page 43... ... Consistency Many learning studies have shown that consistent reciprocity is more effective for establishing a response than irregular or periodic reciprocity. Read the entire page →
From page 44... ... paradoxically makes this response more hardy in instrumental learning settings, that is, less likely to disappear if reciprocity is discontinued (Skinner, 1938) Read the entire page →
From page 45... ... The finding that inconsistent reciprocity makes responses more hardy Inca standard result in learning studies, but it was not replicated in a PD study (Tedeschi et al., 1968) Read the entire page →
From page 46... ... This is because people often habituate to punishment, learning to Jive with it. However, there are arguments for gradually increasing punishment which may sometimes mitigate this advice. Read the entire page →
From page 47... ... Nonreward and nonpunishment tend to be fuzzy events, especially when there is little experience with their opposite. Hence, reciprocity may be ineffective when a desired target behavior is followed by nonpunishment or an undesired behavior by nonreward. Read the entire page →
From page 48... ... When possible, threats of punishment should usually be substituted for actual punishment, because if they work they do not require that the other party be hurt. Where a defensive response can be substituted for punishment, adverse side effects are also less likely (Deutsch, 19731. Read the entire page →
From page 49... ... Hence, we must be careful about generalizing too readily from the conditioning literature. Defects in the Strategy of Reciprocity A major defect in the strategy of reciprocity is that it tends to produce and perpetuate mutual noncooperation. Read the entire page →
From page 50... ... In this way, the parties become locked into a pattern of mutual noncooperation.- The problem is most insidious if the other party fails to cooperate at the beginning of the interaction, because the other then gains no experience whatsoever with the strategist's willingness to reciprocate cooperation and thus misses an essential part of the message. Moreover, there may still be a perceptual problem even if the other has initially cooperated before switching to noncooperation. Read the entire page →
From page 51... ... Delaying retaliation may also make it clearer to the other party that she rather than the strategist initiated noncooperation. However, there is a problem with slow retaliation if it is coupled with fast forgiveness (in a "quick-slow" strategy) Read the entire page →
From page 52... ... A third strategy, which has received research support, is to precede reciprocity with a period of unconditional cooperation. Komorita and Mechling (1967) Read the entire page →
From page 53... ... Verbal instruction or modeling may also be used in such a circumstance. Alternatively, the desired action may be in the other's repertoire but be of low probability -- a relatively rare response that will not be emitted in the normal course of events. Read the entire page →
From page 54... ... A modified form of reciprocity, in which the strategist is both slow to retaliate and slow to reinstate after retaliation appears to be superior to strict reciprocity. Various starting mechanisms are also available once mutual noncooperation has set in, including shaping, the use of prompts, negotiation, mediation, and unilateral initiatives. Read the entire page →
From page 55... ... Such actions are sometimes called unilateral initiatives in the tradition of Osgood's (1962, 1966) GRIT proposals. Read the entire page →
From page 56... ... Encouraging a Positive Mood Receiving favors puts people in a good mood, encouraging them to be generous (Isen and Levin, 1972) Read the entire page →
From page 57... ... Mobilizing Third-partv Pressures Third parties who are trying to resolve a controversy tend to encourage reciprocity, because they believe it will move the controversy toward agreement and will encourage further concessions. Conditions Encouraging Reciprocity Reciprocity of unilateral initiatives is more likely and more extensive under some circumstances than others. Read the entire page →
From page 58... ... . This proposition is supported by the finding that unilateral initiatives are most likely to be reciprocated when the strategist is more powerful (has more threat capacity) Read the entire page →
From page 59... ... . Salience and Clarity of the Initiative It also seems reasonable to assume that more noticeable unilateral initiatives will be more fully reciprocated. Read the entire page →
From page 60... ... They value our cooperation and/or believe that mutual cooperation is more valuable than mutual noncooperation.4 A unilateral initiative can be viewed as encouraging the first condition/ the belief that further cooperation will be repaid. Hence, the model implies that the second Read the entire page →
From page 61... ... Reciprocity is also greater when people expect future interaction with the source of the unilateral initiative than when such interaction is not expected (Gruder, 1971; Marlowe et al., 1966) Read the entire page →
From page 62... ... This desire should be especially strong when conflict is unrewarding and there are costs of continued conflict. Hence, they should be particularly prone to reciprocate our unilateral initiatives. Read the entire page →
From page 63... ... Sadat's trip to Jerusalem followed a war between Egypt and Israel which must have created a sense that continued conflict was both futile and dangerous. Likewise, a successful series of unilateral initiatives aimed at the Soviet Union by President Kennedy in 1963 came soon after the Cuban Missile Crisis.5 Conclusions:- How to Encouraging Reciprocity The points made above suggest several guidelines for encouraging another party to reciprocate one's conciliatory initiatives. Read the entire page →
From page 64... ... In other words, adopt a strategy of reciprocity after the initial period of unilateral initiatives. These suggestions make sense, though research evidence for them is not substantial at this time-. Read the entire page →
From page 65... ... The second is that we can sometimes influence other people by taking positive, unilateral initiatives -- that is, by doing them favors in the hope that they will reciprocate. Such initiatives are particularly likely to work when they are costly to ourselves, when they are salient and clearly explained, when we are seen as genuinely interested in the other people's welfare, when we seem powerful and firm in defense of our larger interests, when the others are dependent on us in the future, and when continued conflict is unrewarding and costly to them. Read the entire page →
From page 66... ... For example, receipt of a message indicating cooperative intent from a powerful person should produce the first and second expectations, leading to cooperation. It follows that this cognitive model should have broad application. Read the entire page →
From page 67... ... We end with a discussion of research frontiers. In the realm of substantive matching, the following projects seem to have merit: (1) Read the entire page →
From page 68... ... Does accurate role reversal lead to influence in noncompetitive settings? Does warm role reversal undermine influence (as found by Johnson) Read the entire page →
From page 69... ... In the realm of reciprocity, the following projects seem worth doing: (7) Much more research is needed about the impact of reciprocity and favor doing on expectations and attributions about the actor. Read the entire page →
From page 70... ... Such warnings, if credible, should have the desired impact on attributions and expectations without producing the negative side-effects often associated with actual punishment. Such warnings may also help the target understand her own role in provoking punishment if the strategist is provoked into using it. Read the entire page →
From page 71... ... If I do ten favors for you in an intimate relationship, are you as unlikely to reciprocate as if I do only one? Or will you reciprocate for fear that I may decide that I am making too much of a contribution to the relationship? Read the entire page →
From page 72... ... Journal of Personality and social Psychology, 29, 374 -380. Allen, B Read the entire page →
From page 73... ... (1966~. Communicator discrepancy, source credibility, and opinion change Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 614-621. Read the entire page →
From page 74... ... Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4, The psychology of Annual Review of Read the entire page →
From page 75... ... Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Read the entire page →
From page 76... ... Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Depaulo, Brittingham and Kaiser (1983) Read the entire page →
From page 77... ... Journal of Social Psychology, 111, 73-78. Gouldner, A Read the entire page →
From page 78... ... Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 8, 99-111. Greenberg, M Read the entire page →
From page 79... ... Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 7, 135-141. Johnson, D Read the entire page →
From page 80... ... . The effectiveness of role reversal The actor or the listener. Read the entire page →
From page 81... ... Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 699-705. Komorita, S Read the entire page →
From page 82... ... Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3, 206-213. McClintock, C Read the entire page →
From page 83... ... Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 10, 402-409. Read the entire page →
From page 84... ... Journal of Social Psychology, 75, 209 215. Tornatzky, L., and Geiwitz, P Read the entire page →
From page 85... ... Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 14/ 227-238. Pruitt' D Read the entire page →
From page 86... ... 86 FOOTNOTES 1The letters in the matrix on the right stand for the following words (Rapoport and Chammah, 1965) : R = reward, S = sticker Is payoff, T = temptation' P = penalty. Read the entire page →
From page 87... ... Hence, it can be argued that a hurting stalemate encourages resort to unilateral initiatives as well as reciprocity to these initiatives. This suggests that hostile relationships are particularly likely to improve when both parties are experiencing a hurting stalemate at the same time. Read the entire page →

From page 1...

... Arguments can be made for the efficacy of matching attitudes, making eye contact, role reversal (in which one feeds back to the other her perspective in a quarrel) , and the like.