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Emotional Seesaw, Compliance, and Mindlessness

DOI:10.1027//1016-9040.6.3.194
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Dariusz Dolinski at SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities
Dariusz Dolinski
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Abstract

Research on emotion conducted so far has ignored situations where the subject experiences a certain emotion, but where the external stimulus that evoked and upholds this emotion suddenly disappears. This kind of situation, however, is relatively common in everyday life. This article attempts to recognize certain consequences of those conditions under which the stimuli justifying our experience of such emotional states as fear or joy suddenly disappear. Research done to date by the author and colleagues indicates increased compliance of the subject when addressed with various requests, commands, or suggestions in the situation termed here "emotional seesaw." The classical "live" example that illustrates this principle is the type of "good cop-bad cop" interrogation procedure. The probable mechanism underlying increased compliance under these conditions is connected with the fact that every emotion generates its own specific behavior program. When this program suddenly proves to be totally inadequate to new, modified external circumstances, the subject begins functioning "mindlessly." This permits automatic reactions, which take no account for the peculiarity of the current situation. Another group of experiments presented in this article shows that the subject's cognitive functioning is disturbed under emotional seesaw conditions. Such a disturbance embraces not only simple cognitive operations like detection of facial expressions of emotion, but also more complex operations like arithmetical calculations done mentally. The article concludes that further research is needed regarding the consequences of sudden and unexpected withdrawal of stimuli that induce and uphold various emotions. Keywords: Social influence, compliance, fear-then-relief, mindlessness, emotional seesaw
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... Whenever a sudden change in the emotional dynamic occurs -negative to positive or vice versa -an increase in compliant behavior is observed ( � Dolinski & Nawrat , �1998� ). Dolinski (2001) defines this emotional seesaw phenomenon (ESP) as a situation in which a person experiences a certain emotion, where the external stimulus evoking the emotion suddenly disappears. Experiments yielded increases in compliance (e.g., Dolinski & Nawrat, 1998), but impaired cognitive functioning (Dolinski, Ciszek, Godlewski, & Zawadzki, 2002). ...
... compliance was decreased when a mindfulness-inducing factor was introduced between ESP and plea (Dolinski et al., 2002;Dolinski & Nawrat, 1998;Kaczmarek & Steffens, 2017). Further, Dolinski and colleagues were able to reject several interpretations as underlying mechanisms of the ESP: it is not based on specific emotions (Dolinski, 2001) nor the excitation-transfer effect (Dolinski & Nawrat, 1998). Alternatively, Dolinski focuses on the affective shift claiming that a sudden withdrawal of the sources of one's emotion may encourage people to think about what has happened, resulting in a shortage of cognitive resources. ...
... Second, we empirically establish the link between cognitive load and compliance. We assume that compliance after an ESP results from cognitive busyness provoked by an expectancy violation (see Dolinski, 2001). More precisely, we expect that expectancy violation provokes an inconsistency-resolution process preventing conscious attention to external stimuli. ...
“Mind full or mindful” – can mere cognitive busyness lead to compliance similar to an emotional seesaw?
Article
  • Oct 2019
The emotional seesaw phenomenon (ESP) is a social-influence technique in which a person experiences a certain emotion, where the external stimulus that evoked the emotion suddenly disappears. Large effects on compliance and impaired cognitive functioning were reported after ESPs. The present research (total N = 163) tests a generalization of this phenomenon: whether mere cognitive busyness leads to similar effects by provoking an inner focus. Two experiments closely modeled after previous ESP experiments supported this reasoning: a simple expectancy violation (Experiment 1) and cognitive load (Experiment 2) caused a comparable pattern of results as the ESP. Experiment 3 demonstrated that also the ESP fostered an inner focus and consequently compliant behavior. We discuss mechanisms underlying social-influence techniques.
... As evidenced above, with numerous replications of the frst experiment, and with new elements being incorporated into the procedure and changes being made both in terms of the method of emotional seesaw manipulation as well as the method used to measure compliance, the authors became convinced that they had discovered a new social infuence technique that had not yet been described in the psychological literature. They also demonstrated its efectiveness in further studies (e.g., Nawrat and Dolinski, 2007;Dolinska and Dolinski, 2014;Dolinski, 2001; for review see: Dolinski, 2001Dolinski, , 2016. For a number of reasons (also due to the self-fulflling prophecy efect, which we discuss in Chapter 3), both laboratory (e.g., Szczepanowski et al., 2019) and feld (e.g., Stefens, 2017, 2019) experiments conducted by other researchers seem to be particularly valuable from the perspective of documenting the psychological consequences of the state of emotional seesaw. ...
... As evidenced above, with numerous replications of the frst experiment, and with new elements being incorporated into the procedure and changes being made both in terms of the method of emotional seesaw manipulation as well as the method used to measure compliance, the authors became convinced that they had discovered a new social infuence technique that had not yet been described in the psychological literature. They also demonstrated its efectiveness in further studies (e.g., Nawrat and Dolinski, 2007;Dolinska and Dolinski, 2014;Dolinski, 2001; for review see: Dolinski, 2001Dolinski, , 2016. For a number of reasons (also due to the self-fulflling prophecy efect, which we discuss in Chapter 3), both laboratory (e.g., Szczepanowski et al., 2019) and feld (e.g., Stefens, 2017, 2019) experiments conducted by other researchers seem to be particularly valuable from the perspective of documenting the psychological consequences of the state of emotional seesaw. ...
The field study in social psychology
Chapter
  • Aug 2021
... As evidenced above, with numerous replications of the frst experiment, and with new elements being incorporated into the procedure and changes being made both in terms of the method of emotional seesaw manipulation as well as the method used to measure compliance, the authors became convinced that they had discovered a new social infuence technique that had not yet been described in the psychological literature. They also demonstrated its efectiveness in further studies (e.g., Nawrat and Dolinski, 2007;Dolinska and Dolinski, 2014;Dolinski, 2001; for review see: Dolinski, 2001Dolinski, , 2016. For a number of reasons (also due to the self-fulflling prophecy efect, which we discuss in Chapter 3), both laboratory (e.g., Szczepanowski et al., 2019) and feld (e.g., Stefens, 2017, 2019) experiments conducted by other researchers seem to be particularly valuable from the perspective of documenting the psychological consequences of the state of emotional seesaw. ...
... As evidenced above, with numerous replications of the frst experiment, and with new elements being incorporated into the procedure and changes being made both in terms of the method of emotional seesaw manipulation as well as the method used to measure compliance, the authors became convinced that they had discovered a new social infuence technique that had not yet been described in the psychological literature. They also demonstrated its efectiveness in further studies (e.g., Nawrat and Dolinski, 2007;Dolinska and Dolinski, 2014;Dolinski, 2001; for review see: Dolinski, 2001Dolinski, , 2016. For a number of reasons (also due to the self-fulflling prophecy efect, which we discuss in Chapter 3), both laboratory (e.g., Szczepanowski et al., 2019) and feld (e.g., Stefens, 2017, 2019) experiments conducted by other researchers seem to be particularly valuable from the perspective of documenting the psychological consequences of the state of emotional seesaw. ...
Field study vs. other research methods
Chapter
  • Aug 2021
... And it was in precisely these conditions that they agreed far more often to accede to a request to participate in quite time-consuming surveys. In other studies (Nawrat & Dolinski, 2007;Dolinski, Ciszek, Godlewski, & Zawadzki, 2002), it was demonstrated that in a condition the authors termed "emotional seesaw," the individual has limited possibilities to adequately assess the situation and exhibits clearly diminished cognitive functioning (see Dolinski, 2001 for review). ...
How did Milgram do it?
Chapter
  • May 2020
... And it was in precisely these conditions that they agreed far more often to accede to a request to participate in quite time-consuming surveys. In other studies (Nawrat & Dolinski, 2007;Dolinski, Ciszek, Godlewski, & Zawadzki, 2002), it was demonstrated that in a condition the authors termed "emotional seesaw," the individual has limited possibilities to adequately assess the situation and exhibits clearly diminished cognitive functioning (see Dolinski, 2001 for review). ...
Multiple foot-in-the-door and obedience
Chapter
  • May 2020
... And it was in precisely these conditions that they agreed far more often to accede to a request to participate in quite time-consuming surveys. In other studies (Nawrat & Dolinski, 2007;Dolinski, Ciszek, Godlewski, & Zawadzki, 2002), it was demonstrated that in a condition the authors termed "emotional seesaw," the individual has limited possibilities to adequately assess the situation and exhibits clearly diminished cognitive functioning (see Dolinski, 2001 for review). ...
Individual differences and behavior during the experiment
Chapter
  • May 2020
... And it was in precisely these conditions that they agreed far more often to accede to a request to participate in quite time-consuming surveys. In other studies (Nawrat & Dolinski, 2007;Dolinski, Ciszek, Godlewski, & Zawadzki, 2002), it was demonstrated that in a condition the authors termed "emotional seesaw," the individual has limited possibilities to adequately assess the situation and exhibits clearly diminished cognitive functioning (see Dolinski, 2001 for review). ...
Are you going to be less obedient if there is a real possibility of the victim “repaying” you?
Chapter
  • May 2020
... Temporal aspects of social influence mechanisms play an even more important role in the fear-then-relief technique (Dolinski & Nawrat, 1998), which is based on evidence that when people experience an emotion that is then removed, they are more likely to comply with a request. Surprisingly-and importantly-the technique completely ceases to be effective when the request is not delivered immediately (i.e., a few seconds after the fear has disappeared; Dolinski, 2001). Knowles and Riner (2007) in their alpha-omega approaches to persuasion claim that some social influence strategies (e.g., distraction or consuming resistance) are likely to have only a temporary effect, while some other techniques (e.g., guarantees or reframing) have a more 797075C QXXXX10.1177/1938965518797075Cornell ...
Temporal Aspects of the Chameleon Effect and Hospitality: The Link Between Mimicry, Its Impact, and Duration
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In an experiment conducted in natural settings (in a restaurant), we explore the uninvestigated link between mimicry, its impact on hospitality, and the time during which the mimicry takes place. Under particular experimental conditions, the waitress either did not verbally mimic the customer, mimicked the customer only at the initial stage of the interaction, only at the final stage of the interaction, or at both the initial and the final stage of the interaction. The tip left by the customer and its amount were the indicators of the hospitality experienced throughout the time spent in the restaurant. The outcome was that both indicators of noticeable hospitality were the highest where the verbal mimicry was applied twice.
The Field Study in Social Psychology: How to Conduct Research Outside of a Laboratory Setting?
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The Social Psychology of Obedience Towards Authority: An Empirical Tribute to Stanley Milgram
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  • May 2020
“Fear-Then-Relief” Procedure for Producing Compliance: Beware When the Danger Is Over
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  • Jan 1998
This article presents the procedure and results of five experiments (four field studies and one laboratory experiment) designed to test the effectiveness of a new technique (“fear-then-relief”) for producing compliance. It has been shown that people who experience anxiety whose source is later abruptly eliminated usually respond positively to various requests addressed to them. The fear-then-relief phenomenon was found to be reliable and strong in both field studies and the laboratory experiment. A model based on the concept of limited capacity of cognitive resource, fear dynamic, and direction of attention concentration is offered as an explanation of the results obtained.
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Full-text available
  • Mar 1976
The perceptibility of face, scrambled face, and single-feature stimuli was investigated in three experiments. Stimuli were presented tachistoscopically, followed by a visual noise mask and a forced-choice test of one of three features (eyes, nose, and mouth). In Experiment I, two processing strategies which have been proposed for word perception (involving expectancy and redundancy) were investigated for the stimuli employed here. In Experiments II and III, experimentally induced familiarity was studied for its effect on recognition and perception, and an immediate and delayed perceptual test was employed. Across all three experiments, perception of single-feature and face stimuli were consistently superior to scrambled faces; in Experiment III, differences between single features and faces were eliminated. The effects of perceptual expectancy, internal feature redundancy, familiarity, guessing biases, etc., were shown to be insufficient to account for the superiority of face to scrambled face stimuli. It was argued that the perceptibility of nonredundant features are enhanced when those features are aligned in a well-defined form class. The view that familiarity operates directly on recognitive processes but indirectly on perceptual ones was discussed.
Four- and Six-Month-Old Infants' Visual Responses to Joy, Anger, and Neutral Expressions
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  • Jul 1976
24 infants, 12 4-month-olds and 12 6-month-olds, were repeatedly shown slides of 3 facial expressions. The expressions were previously judged by obervers to be indicators of joy, anger, and no emotion, respectively. The duration of the first visual fixation to each presentation of the slides was monitored for each subject. The data indicated that the infants looked at the joy expression significantly more than at either the anger or neutral expressions. The results suggest that infants are capable of discriminating emotion expressions earlier in their development than previous studies have implied.
Does Self-Perception Change Explain the Foot-in-the-Door Effect?
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  • Jul 1995
Consent to perform a small favor increases a respondent's susceptibility to perform a relatively large favor. This phenomenon, known as the foot-in-the-door effect, is considered to result from induced self-perception changes: the respondent comes to feel helpful for doing the small favor and complies again later out of a desire to maintain the instilled self-view. This study did not find a link between self-perception changes and large-request compliance in 2 experiments, although manipulations successfully altered self-rated helpfulness. Specifically, self-rated helpfulness increased (in Experiments 1 & 2) if participants' consent to a small favor brought social approval, and the ratings decreased (in Experiment 2) when social feedback for the small favor contained consensus information (i.e., indicated everyone else was also doing the favor). However, the ratings failed to predict either foot-in-the-door effects actually observed or compliance generally. Preexperimental gender differences in self-perceived helpfulness, in which women construed themselves to be more helpful than men, did successfully predict compliance with the large request. Implications for a theory of foot-in-the-door are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Resources - A theoretical soup stone?
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  • Apr 1984
Argues that many effects that are usually interpreted to indicate that a process in question is resource-dependent are equally likely even when investment of limited resources is not assumed. In particular, it is shown that 3 tests of resource dependence, based on predicted interaction between task difficulty and resource availability and considered to be more diagnostic than other tests, are actually subject to severe constraints. It is claimed that most of the problems stem from the self-reinforcing nature of the notion of resources, that nonetheless such circularity is tolerable in the case of an intervening variable that allows explanation and prediction of a wide range of empirical observations, and that if resource theory fails to provide such explanations and predictions, it may turn out to be "excess baggage." Several novel methodological suggestions are examined. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The Unbearable Automaticity of Being
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What was noted by E. J. Langer (1978) remains true today: that much of contemporary psychological research is based on the assumption that people are consciously and systematically processing incoming information in order to construe and interpret their world and to plan and engage in courses of action. As did Langer, the authors question this assumption. First, they review evidence that the ability to exercise such conscious, intentional control is actually quite limited, so that most of moment-to-moment psychological life must occur through nonconscious means if it is to occur at all. The authors then describe the different possible mechanisms that produce automatic, environmental control over these various phenomena and review evidence establishing both the existence of these mechanisms as well as their consequences for judgments, emotions, and behavior. Three major forms of automatic self-regulation are identified: an automatic effect of perception on action, automatic goal pursuit, and a continual automatic evaluation of one's experience. From the accumulating evidence, the authors conclude that these various nonconscious mental systems perform the lion's share of the self-regulatory burden, beneficently keeping the individual grounded in his or her current environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The 5-month-old's ability to discriminate facial expressions of emotion
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The paired-comparison novelty technique was used to assess the 5-month-old infant's ability to discriminate between the facial expressions of anger, fear, and sadness. The 72 infants met the criterion for discrimination except when anger was the novel stimulus. It was hypothesized that for some infants novelty was a less potent determinant of looking than was another aspect of the stimulus ex pression, such as its social-signal value or relative aversiveness. A second experiment was designed to test this notion. Sixty-eight infants failed to meet the criterion of discrimination between joy, anger, and interest, though infants had done so in previous studies. Results of the two experiments suggest that some 5-month-olds can discriminate between anger, sadness, and fear expressions, but that the paired-comparison novelty technique may underestimate the infant's ability to detect differences among stimuli of different social- or emotion-signal value.
Matters of mind: Mindfulness/mindlessness in perspective
Article
  • Sep 1992
The dual concepts of mindfulness and mindlessness are described. Mindfulness is a state of conscious awareness in which the individual is implicitly aware of the context and content of information. It is a state of openness to novelty in which the individual actively constructs categories and distinctions. In contrast, mindlessness is a state of mind characterized by an over reliance on categories and distinctions drawn in the past and in which the individual is context-dependent and, as such, is oblivious to novel (or simply alternative) aspects of the situation. Mindlessness is compared to more familiar concepts such as habit, functional fixedness, overlearning, and automatic (vs controlled) processing. Like mindlessness, these concepts concern rigid invariant behavior that occurs with little or no conscious awareness. The primary difference is that mindlessness may result from a single exposure to information. When information is given in absolute (vs conditional) language, is given by an authority, or initially appears irrelevant, there is little manifest reason to critically examine the information and thereby recognize the ways it may be context-dependent. Instead, the individual mindlessly forms a cognitive commitment to the information and freezes its potential meaning. Alternative meanings or uses of the information become unavailable for active cognitive use. Automatic vs controlled processing, while seemingly most similar to mindlessness/mindfulness, are orthogonal to them. One can process information in a controlled but mindless manner, or automatic but mindful. Related concepts like scripts, set, expectancy, labels, and roles direct behavior, but these too may be enacted mindlessly or mindfully. The major consequences of mindlessness/mindfulness are discussed with respect to their relevance for overt behavior (competence), memory, and health. Finally, the relationship between traditional notions of consciousness and mindfulness is briefly examined.
Finding the Face in the Crowd: An Anger Superiority Effect
Article
  • Jul 1988
Facial gestures have been given an increasingly critical role in models of emotion. The biological significance of interindividual transmission of emotional signals is a pivotal assumption for placing the face in a central position in these models. This assumption invited a logical corollary, examined in this article: Face-processing should be highly efficient. Three experiments documented an asymmetry in the processing of emotionally discrepant faces embedded in crowds. The results suggested that threatening faces pop out of crowds, perhaps as a result of a preattentive, parallel search for signals of direct threat.
Effect of observer's emotional state on judgments of the emotional state of others
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  • Aug 1974
Divided 60 undergraduate Ss into 5 groups; each S received an emotional arousal manipulation and judged a series of facial expression slides. It was found that an S's own emotional state exerted a strong influence on his judgments of another's emotional state. An aroused S was more likely to attribute the emotion he was feeling and other similarly valenced emotion than was a nonaroused or differently aroused S. An S's own emotional state had an influence on the intensity of emotion he attributed to the slides. This effect was independent of the affect expressed in the slide. Both of the observed effects held for positive as well as negative emotional states of the judge.