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Ask in person: You're less persuasive than you think over email
Abstract
Research has found people underestimate the likelihood strangers will comply with their direct requests (Bohns, 2016; Flynn & Lake (Bohns), 2008). Here we argue this “underestimation-of-compliance effect” may be limited to requests made face-to-face. We find when making direct requests over email, requesters instead overestimate compliance. In two studies, participants asked strangers to comply with requests either face-to-face or over email. Before making these requests, requesters estimated the number of people they expected to say “yes”. While requesters underestimated compliance in face-to-face contexts, replicating previous research, they overestimated compliance in email contexts. Analyses of several theorized mechanisms for this finding suggest that requesters, anchored on their own perspectives, fail to appreciate the suspicion, and resulting lack of empathy, with which targets view email requests from strangers. Given the prevalence of email and text-based communication, this is an extremely important moderator of the underestimation-of-compliance effect.
... In line with this argument, Flynn and Lake (2008) found that people felt more comfortable rejecting help requests when these requests were written out on a piece of paper and handed to targets. Similarly, other research has found that people are much more likely to refuse emailed help requests than those made in-person (Constant et al., 1996;Dabbish et al., 2005;Gerber & Green, 2000;Ling et al., 2005;Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017;Zhu et al., 2016). ...
... The limited work that has tackled the question of how the accuracy of these predictions vary by communication channel has specifically examined whether help-seekers recognize the differential effectiveness of text-based versus in-person communication channels when asking for help (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). This work has found that help-seekers fail to differentiate between communication channels that produce vastly different compliance rates (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). ...
... The limited work that has tackled the question of how the accuracy of these predictions vary by communication channel has specifically examined whether help-seekers recognize the differential effectiveness of text-based versus in-person communication channels when asking for help (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). This work has found that help-seekers fail to differentiate between communication channels that produce vastly different compliance rates (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). While in-person help requests were 34 times more effective than those sent via email in the study noted earlier, help-seekers thought the two communication channels would produce similar results. ...
Research has found that people are much more likely to agree to help requests made in-person than those made via text-based media, but that help-seekers underestimate the relative advantage of asking for help face-to-face. It remains unknown what help-seekers’ intuitions about the effectiveness of richer media channels incorporating audio and video features might be, or how these intuitions would compare with the actual effectiveness of face-to-face or email versus rich media requests. In two behavioral and two supplemental vignette experiments, participants expected differences in the effectiveness of seeking help through various communication channels to be quite small, or nonexistent. However, when participants actually made requests, the differences were substantial. Ultimately, help-seekers underestimated the relative advantage of asking for help face-to-face compared with asking through any mediated channel. Help-seekers also underestimated the relative advantage of asking through richer media channels compared with email.
... In line with this argument, Flynn and Lake (2008) found that people felt more comfortable rejecting help requests when these requests were written out on a piece of paper and handed to targets. Similarly, other research has found that people are much more likely to refuse emailed help-requests than those made in-person (Constant et al., 1996;Dabbish et al., 2005;Gerber & Green, 2000;Ling et al., 2005;Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017;Zhu et al., 2016). ...
... The limited work that has tackled the question of how the accuracy of these predictions vary by communication channel has specifically examined whether help-seekers recognize the differential effectiveness of text-based versus in-person communication channels when asking for help (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). This work has found that help-seekers fail to differentiate between communication channels that produce vastly different compliance rates (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). ...
... The limited work that has tackled the question of how the accuracy of these predictions vary by communication channel has specifically examined whether help-seekers recognize the differential effectiveness of text-based versus in-person communication channels when asking for help (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). This work has found that help-seekers fail to differentiate between communication channels that produce vastly different compliance rates (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). While in-person help-requests were 34 times more effective than those sent via email in the study noted earlier, helpseekers thought the two communication channels would produce similar results. ...
Research has found that people are much more likely to agree to help requests made in-person than those made via text-based media, but that help-seekers underestimate the relative advantage of asking for help face-to-face. It remains unknown what help-seekers’ intuitions about the effectiveness of richer media channels incorporating audio and video features might be, or how these intuitions would compare to the actual effectiveness of face-to-face or email versus rich media requests. In two behavioral and two supplemental vignette experiments, participants expected differences in the effectiveness of seeking help through various communication channels to be quite small, or nonexistent. However, when participants actually made requests, the differences were quite large. Ultimately, help-seekers underestimated the relative advantage of asking for help face-to-face compared to asking through any mediated channel. Help-seekers also underestimated the relative advantage of asking through richer media channels compared to email.
... Some examples of compliance problems include decisions related to buying a product, donating to a charity, or, generally, complying with a request. The literature in psychology, communications, and political science has noted the face effect, i.e., face-to-face interactions are more effective in inducing compliance than other forms of interactions, such as direct mail, telephone calls, and emails (e.g., Milgram, 1965b;Gerber and Green, 2000;Roghanizad and Bohns, 2017). ...
... More recent research has noted the face effect (e.g., Milgram, 1965b;Gerber and Green, 2000;Roghanizad and Bohns, 2017). For example, Gerber and Green (2000) found that personal canvassing increases voter turnout more than direct mail and telephone calls in a field experiment. ...
... For example, Gerber and Green (2000) found that personal canvassing increases voter turnout more than direct mail and telephone calls in a field experiment. Roghanizad and Bohns (2017) suggest that people often underestimate compliance rate in face-to-face interactions while overestimating compliance rate of emails due to varied trust and empathy levels of the two channels. Yet the underlying mechanism of the face effect has rarely been explicitly explored (Gerber and Green, 2000). ...
Face-to-face interactions are central to many individual choices and decision-making issues, such as customer services, sales, promotions, and negotiations. While the face effect, that is, face-to-face interactions are more effective in inducing compliance than other forms of interactions, has been noted in the literature, its mechanism has rarely been explored. This research helps to fill the theoretical void and provides new insights into the face effect with two lab experiments and one field experiment. Study 1, a field experiment conducted in a beauty salon, and Study 2, a lab experiment, show that the face effect is largely attributable to anticipated facial feedback and that the face effect is stronger when individuals are sensitive to face and when the requester’s face is expressive. Study 3, using video-simulated face-to-face interactions, demonstrates that anticipated facial feedback, not necessarily actual feedback, is enough to drive the face effect. In so doing, this research furthers our understanding of factors that affect individual compliance in face-to-face interactions in both the “sending” and “receiving” stages. We discuss the theoretical and empirical implications, limitations, and future avenues of research.
... The theory states that communication channels differ in the extent to which they give individuals the subjective feeling of being present with a "real" person, such as whether the feeling of intimacy and immediacy can be created by nonverbal cues (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997). Without being able to use such cues as body language and facial expression (McGinley et al., 1975), individuals find it more difficult to create trust and empathy and to be perceived as well-meaning and sympathetic (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). Furthermore, miscommunication may occur if a person, for example, does not understand sarcasm or humour in written text (Kruger et al., 2005). ...
... Thus, the results are in line with, for example, studies conducted by McGuire et al. (1987) and Wilson (2003). Compared to communication via social media, a voicemail message could trigger a sense of personal communication and feelings of intimacy and immediacy (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997), resulting in the appearance of being trustworthy and well-meaning (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). ...
Social media offers individuals and organisations new opportunities for speaking up. The receiver's valuation of the sender's voice is a prerequisite for resulting change. However, the influence of modern communication channels like social media on this valuation has not yet been investigated. Against this background, our study investigates the valuation of social media voice. We conduct a scenario-based experiment in which the participants imagine themselves to be a manager who is evaluating a proposal. The results show that the valuation of voice is better if a proposal is communicated via voicemail than if it is communicated via social media, if the proposal is based on the opinion of an individual rather than that of a group, and if the source is an expert. We also find a three-way interaction between the channel, source, and source credibility. The paper provides contributions to research on employee voice, the ELM, and the Social Presence Theory. We discuss our findings and derive opportunities for future research and implications for both employees and organisations.
... Employees in IT consulting companies should be equipped with the required technology to work effectively when remotely, paying attention at specific hardware and cloud necessities some employees working with computationally intensive software may require. Virtual communications (Bloom et al., 2014;Hart, 2020) should be kept professional and respectful of all employees, training everyone in knowing how to report and manage ineffective virtual interactions (EY Belgium, 2020; Wang et al., 2021), e.g., avoiding multiple emails and resolving any conversations faster in a virtual meeting (Baker, 2020;Bohns, 2017;Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). ...
... Employees in IT consulting companies should be equipped with the required technology to work effectively when remotely, paying attention at specific hardware and cloud necessities some employees working with computationally intensive software may require. Virtual communications (Bloom et al., 2014;Hart, 2020) should be kept professional and respectful of all employees, training everyone in knowing how to report and manage ineffective virtual interactions (EY Belgium, 2020; Wang et al., 2021), e.g., avoiding multiple emails and resolving any conversations faster in a virtual meeting (Baker, 2020;Bohns, 2017;Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). ...
Previous research has either neglected to consider misbehaviour or misconduct in the virtual workplace during the current COVID-19 pandemic or highlighted some challenges encountered with remote working or work from home but in isolation, e.g., misbehaviours or ethical concerns associated with improper use of technology when accessing clients’ confidential information, without understanding their aetiology and context in a holistic manner. This has impacted the ability of existing research in providing recommendations organisations can practically implement to improve the sustainability and productivity of the virtual workplace, especially as they seek to navigate the current pandemic and prepare for the global business environment in the next decade. Instead, this study, for the first time, proposes a novel holistic methodology to identify the aetiologies of ethical and performance challenges with focus to the Information Technology consulting sector, as well as developing a set of recommendations companies can adopt to manage such behavioural and productivity challenges. Thus, this study illustrates the key issues associated with remote working implemented to respond to the current COVID-19 pandemic, which mine not only the individual performance in an organisation but also its overall productivity, as well as suggests the main performance and reward management strategies that can be leveraged to mitigate them. Tailored strategies are described and discussed as referred to this industry to help in navigating a more unstable yet competitive market to manage the virtual employees’ misbehaviours in the workplace and drive growth for individuals and organisations alike.
... To illustrate, personal interaction is more persuasive to attract further attention or to allow observing ''social clues'' better (Battiston et al., 2017;Bohns, 2017;Bonet & Salvador, 2017;Golden & Gajendran, 2019;Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). Increased email traffic or virtual meetings are examples of obstructive modes of communication that may emerge to make up for the absence of personal conversation. ...
This empirical study aims to examine and validate the factors influencing productivity among remote academic staff in Jordanian higher education institutions during the Covid-19 crisis, with a specific focus on the mediating role of employee engagement. A comprehensive conceptual framework is developed by integrating relevant studies on remote work-from-home, productivity, and engagement, along with insights from in-depth interviews. Employing a descriptive correlational survey design, the study explores the relationships among the study factors using a quantitative approach. Data is collected from a random sample of 408 remote academic staff members who worked from home during Covid-19. The findings robustly support the proposition that organizational, individual, technological, and client-related factors significantly and positively influence academic productivity through the mediation of employee engagement. These results emphasize the importance of considering these interrelated factors holistically to enhance productivity and engagement in remote academic work. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of remote work dynamics and provides practical insights for improving productivity and engagement in the Jordanian higher education context.
... Participants noted that face-to-face meetings allow responses to be instantaneous, as opposed to emails, and are better for building rapport with other healthcare professionals. Most communication is transmitted through non-verbal cues without linguistic content [25], and face-to-face requests are more likely met with compliance than emails and other written, text-based platforms [26,27]. ...
Primary care networks (PCNs) are geographical networks consisting of 30,000 to 50,000 patients and groups of general practices working in a multidisciplinary team, including community pharmacists. Community pharmacy (CP) neighbourhood leads act as a conduit between pharmacy contractors and general practitioners (GPs) in these networks, sharing information and providing a voice for the community pharmacy locally. The Lambeth medicines team (NHS South East London Integrated Care Board) recognised the need to continue funding these leadership roles to address barriers to relationship-building between community pharmacies and general practices, the consistency of service delivery and effective communication. The aim of this study was to understand the current experience of CP neighbourhood leads to inform their further development. All eight CP neighbourhood leads individually completed a semi-structured interview over Microsoft Teams, which was then reviewed using content analysis. Ethical approval was received. Leads reported the use of common communication methods such as emails, text messaging applications and telephone calls to engage GPs and pharmacies in their neighbourhoods. Barriers to undertaking their roles included time constraints, delays in responses, high workloads and competing pressures. Other factors impacting their effectiveness and ability to undertake their roles included the scheduling of meetings outside of working hours, finding time during busy working days and organising locum cover on an ad hoc basis. The leads also reported they spent more time focussed on building relationships with their peers and less time focussed on general practice colleagues. Support for CP neighbourhood leads could include ensuring that funded time is protected; communication and technology training; and the provision of more structural support for communication with GPs. The findings of this study can be used to inform future work.
... A study conducted by Roghanizad and Bohns (2017) revealed that students' emails are less influential and less persuasive than what they think. The trust found in face-to-face interactions is missing in the mediated methods. ...
This study aims at exploring communication practices between students and supervisors in thesis projects. The study conducted a comparison between face-to-face and mediated communication through the use of emails. The researcher used the autobiographical reflection to document examples of information communicated during the two interactions. Furthermore, it utilized semi-structured interviews with three students who were conducting their thesis in the Information Studies Department at Kuwait University. Then, the researcher conducted interviews with four students’ from other masters’ programs. The study used a qualitative method to analyze the results. The findings showed that students used face-to-face meetings and mediated communication to seek different types of information. The topics discussed varied between the face-to-face and mediated interaction. Face-to-face communication was perceived as more effective and productive, while mediated communication was easier and faster. Students used e-mails to set appointments with their supervisors, ask questions and get feedback on assignments. Students faced some communication barriers such as difficulty of sense-making and experiencing the “black-hole” phenomenon. The study suggested applying an electronic supervision system to facilitate students’ communication with their supervisors. This study has practical significance as it helps students and supervisors interact successfully during different thesis writing stages.
... Conversely, reliance on a single source, such as auditory communication only, as occurs in telephonic communications, decreases accuracy and effectiveness in monolingual interactions. For example, face-to-face monolingual requests secured 34 times as much compliance as the same request via e-mail (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017), a difference attributable to the presence of nonverbal cues in the face-to-face condition. Recently, in legal settings, in line with the multimodal model of communication, linguists have taken nonverbal communication (e.g., gesture) and spatial and visual relations among the participants, into account (Conley et al., 2019). ...
... A Berger (2016) conducted by the Meetings Mean Business coalition and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) finds that "96% of small business owners say in-person meetings yield a return on investments" (Berger 2016). Requests made face-to-face are 34 times more effective than those made "blind" (Roghanizad and Bohns 2017). However, in 2019-2021 the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic made in-person meetings impossible and accelerated a shift to online communication. ...
We present results of an experiment designed to reveal the “face effect” on pricing behavior in a supply chain game. In particular, we study the variation in wholesale prices driven by subjective judgments of three facial traits—attractiveness, trustworthiness, and dominance—of a retailer’s face and own appearance. Our experimental data suggest that the distributions of decisions in settings whether individuals see, or not see, retailers’ faces are not equivalent. Furthermore, we find the complex dependencies between decision behaviors and facial traits. Subjective evaluations of facial traits, both self-reported and others, have a significant effect on the selected decisions.
... Regarding the labor force in the market, the competition for a highly qualified employee reaches a record value. According to Roghanizad (2017), the introduction of competition in the labor market for highly skilled workers is due to macroeconomic and microeconomic factors of the global environment. Macroeconomic factors relate, first of all, to the quality of human life in the context of the country's policy and its territorial location. ...
The relevance of the topic is to improve the system of management and labor management during wartime. The Russian-Ukrainian war has led to the development of a number of negative processes on the corporate and management activities of organizations. The importance of building an effective workforce management system and its diversification is a priority task for a corporate market participant. The issue of using modern approaches to the possibility of using the workforce in wartime is a widely debated issue, which determines the relevance of the research topic. The aim of the article is to analyze the prospective management systems of workforce diversification in organizations during the military threat in the global space. The objectives of the research are to study the features of labor force and personnel management, as well as to analyze the formation of a diversification strategy during wartime. The problems of the study are the possible shortage of personnel and skilled workers. In addition, military actions in Ukraine create the danger of migration, which leads to the task of strategic importance - the search for different channels of labor and the possibility of attracting personnel. The object of research is the process of labor force management and scientific approaches to its diversification. Through the use of scientific research methods, the main means of managing the diversification of the workforce in organizations during wartime are identified. The methodology of the study is to outline current trends in the development of the labor market and integrated management systems that have been transformed with the Russian-Ukrainian war.
... Suomi et al. (1998, p. 329) stress that the reasons for the moderate adoption of face-to-display work particularly in larger organisations can be found in management communication styles and practices. Face-to-face requests are still preferred above e-mails (Bohns, 2018;Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). Suomi et al. (1998) add that management capabilities and opinions seem to be the critical factor for the introduction of this kind of work. ...
There has been a clear increase in the number of e-workers across countries and industries. But the experience of working from home has not been the same in all countries. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore and understand the managers’ perspectives of and attitudes towards face-to-display working, namely the reactions of managers working from home, their use of the home-office during the ongoing Covid-19 epidemic, advantages and disadvantages, their productivity, how they cooperated and organised teleworking, and how they evaluated the reasons that led to their experience and their views on future home-office development. One hundred and sixty-two respondents from the Czech Republic participated in the online survey from February to March 2022. Eleven hypotheses were established that needed to be proved or disproved (six hypotheses were confirmed and five were not). Face-to-display working was identified as an effective, time-saving tool that fostered increased productivity and satisfaction (especially among the younger generation), promoted cost-saving and provided a future work model option. Conversely, management professionals were concerned that face-to-display working affected work-life balance and resulted in a lack of physical human interaction, also that productivity was not affected by less support from colleagues, by gender or by having an at-home work space and that workers were not spending more time at their desks. The findings from this study demonstrate positive social change involving the adoption of face-to-display working in businesses. Understanding the management perspective regarding face-to-display working in the Czech Republic may lead to ways of dealing with problems that will allow more employees to work in other premises. Received: 23 May 2022 / Accepted: 16 August 2022 / Published: 2 September 2022
... Rainey (2000) suggested that visual and acoustic elements create the greatest interpersonal impact and that the lack of these two essential components of communication results in a "defect" with e-mail. These non-verbal cues are necessary to help enhance communication, improve understanding and ensure that the intended message is conveyed correctly (Ferri, 2017) and generate trust and empathy (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). This problematic condition imposes a critical liability on e-mail users in that they must be fully aware of the quality of their writing while crafting the text message (Renaud et al., 2006) since such physical expressions as the tone of voice, body language, intonation, and facial expression are not supported. ...
E-mail is a prime tool of communication for most organizations and has, increasingly, become integrated into the organizational life of education, specifically during the recent move to online teaching due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Managing e-mail communication and usage brings challenges due to the associated downsides but these have only been investigated to a limited extent, if at all, within the school's workplace settings; necessitating a better understanding and a holistic view into this matter from teachers' perspectives as a specific group of e-mail users. This qualitative study, therefore, explores teachers' (N = 9) concerns and the difficulties they encounter in using work-based e-mail for regular communication in a private school in the United Arab Emirates and sheds light on the regulations exercised to manage these. Overall, thematic data analysis yielded two themes representing the downsides experienced and problems encountered, and how they are managed. Eight associated categories identified the following key downsides: E-mail overload; the obligation to check e-mails constantly; distraction; wasting and extending working time; e-mail misuse, as in the case of broadcasting violations; misunderstanding; the threatening impact of e-mail when used as evidence; and issues related to confidentiality. Practical implications and consequent future research concerning proactive e-mail practices in schools are discussed as part of the domain of educational technology and distance education, all of which will be of interest to a wider audience across other working sectors to impart a better understanding of what is still lacking and what improvements can be made, resulting in introducing new and more effective horizons for work-based communications.
... Information-rich media (e.g., video conferencing) can maintain a sense of social connection across physical distance [77]. By contrast, impoverished text-based media (e.g., email, Twitter) can increase misunderstanding in communication [78][79][80][81], diminish perceptions of an interaction partner's mental competence [82,83], and reduce the likelihood of receiving help following a request [84] compared to using information-rich media. ...
A person’s well-being depends heavily on forming and maintaining positive relationships, but people can be reluctant to connect in ways that would create or strengthen relationships. Emerging research suggests that miscalibrated social cognition may create psychological barriers to connecting with others more often. Specifically, people may underestimate how positively others will respond to their own sociality across a variety of social actions, including engaging in conversation, expressing appreciation, and performing acts of kindness. We suggest that these miscalibrated expectations are created and maintained by at least three mechanisms: differential construal, uncertain responsiveness, and asymmetric learning. Underestimating the positive consequences of social engagement could make people less social than would be optimal for both their own and others’ well-being.
... К группе возможных рисков со стороны работодателя следует отнести сложность поддержания корпоративной культуры среди сотрудников, затруднённость влияния на их мотивацию (Pretti et al. 2020) и в случае коллективных задач сложность отслеживания вклада каждого участника (Peters et al. 2016). В ряде исследований было обнаружено, что снижение частоты личных контактов уменьшает плотность коммуникации, препятствует взаимному обучению сотрудников и осложняет передачу «социальных подсказок» (Roghanizad, Bohns 2017). ...
In 2019-2020 the global economy faced an unprecedented transition to remote employment. New information technologies have made this transition possible, but prior to the pandemic it was implemented with great hesitation even in technologically advanced companies, whose activities are focused on data analysis. The sudden push toward remote work has formed a new reality of the global labor market - mass foreign outsourcing of labor in a wide range of professions. New trends are adding additional challenges for the legal regulation of labor relations at the level of states and international organizations (ILO and UN).The article asks what the socio-economic consequences of the surge in remote employment on a state and international level will be.The methodology of the study consists in conducting cross-country comparisons of the social behavior of employers and employees, as well as analyzing the response of international organizations and states in terms of adapting the regulatory framework to the changed social relations.The results show that the "point of no return" in the organization of labor relations has not been reached yet. The effects of the increased scale of remote employment is observed only in individual and usually very large companies. However, at the national level the situation with remote employment returns to a large extent to the pre-crisis level, although not completely. At first glance socially comfortable model of remote employment triggers systemic risks, which, if further accelerated, will fully manifest themselves in the foreseeable future. Remote employment is one of the means of labor market globalization, the pandemic of COVID-19 has acted as an accelerator for the growth of cross-border remote employment. In this regard, we should expect an intensification of the international discussion on the need and sufficiency of national legislative borders that restrain the globalization of the labor market, which needs to liberalize remote employment with the participation of foreign citizens.
... Conversely, reliance on a single source, such as auditory communication only, as occurs in telephonic communications, decreases accuracy and effectiveness in monolingual interactions. For example, face-to-face monolingual requests secured 34 times as much compliance as the same request via e-mail (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017), a difference attributable to the presence of nonverbal cues in the face-to-face condition. Recently, in legal settings, in line with the multimodal model of communication, linguists have taken nonverbal communication (e.g., gesture) and spatial and visual relations among the participants, into account (Conley et al., 2019). ...
Police interviewers in English-speaking countries increasingly conduct interviews via an interpreter with suspects and witnesses who do not speak English. Oral communication in an official interview has serious legal consequences, beginning with Miranda rights or similar cautions. Past studies have yielded inconsistent results on key issues such as interpreting accuracy, changes in interpreter placement, remote versus face-to-face interpreting, and interviewer–interviewee rapport. To foster a robust and coherent scientific evidence base, this review synthesizes and integrates findings from the field and the laboratory. Interpreting procedures in Australia, Europe, and the United States of America are compared. The core of the chapter is an analysis of sources of research disparities which hinge on methodological differences in experimental assessments of interpreting performance. Prominent research gaps are identified regarding the optimal interpreting mode in police interviews, the interpreter’s role, assessment of interpreting performance, maintenance of investigative interviewing strategies, remote interpreting, and the effects of interpreting on witness credibility. Building on this review, future transdisciplinary research can develop empirically sound standards and best practice guidance and training for interviewers and interpreters. Implications of the findings are specified for courts, legal practitioners, and juries.
... After arriving at the laboratory, participants (our compliment givers) were told they would go to an assigned campus location (e.g., dining hall, building lobby), and give a simple, straightforward compliment to a matched gender stranger. Following the procedure of Roghanizad & Bohns (2017) to reduce selection bias, participants were instructed to compliment the fourth male or female (depending on their own gender) they saw (compliment receivers) once they arrived at their designated location. They were instructed to say, "I like your shirt" (or jacket or dress, if no shirt was visible). ...
A simple compliment can make someone’s day, start a new friendship, or just make the world a better, kinder place. So, why don’t people give more compliments? Perhaps people misforecast the effect their compliment will have. Five studies explored this possibility. In Studies 1a and 1b, compliment givers underestimated how positively the person receiving their compliment would feel, with consequences for their likelihood of giving a compliment. Compliment givers also overestimated how bothered and uncomfortable the recipient would feel (Study 2)—and did so even in hindsight (Study 3). Compliment givers’ own anxiety and concern about their competence led to their misprediction, whereas third-party forecasters were accurate (Study 4). Finally, despite compliment givers’ anxiety at the prospect of giving compliments across our studies, they felt better after having done so (Study 4). Our studies suggest that people misestimate their compliments’ value to others, and so they refrain from engaging in this prosocial behavior.
... Written communications have been shown consistently to be less effective or persuasive than face-to-face meetings (Roghanizad and Bohns 2017), and in many cases, telephone conversations may be more productive than email communication. Moreover, do not assume that partners have reliable internet access or that an unanswered email is a lack of interest. ...
Environmental decision-makers and practitioners need and deserve high quality environmental evidence for effective decision-making. We collate and share a suite of best practices for applied environmental researchers to support their capacity to inform such decision-making processes. This raises a number of important questions: What does “relevant” and informative evidence look like? How do we know when evidence has been applied? We assembled an experienced team of knowledge generators and users in Canada to identify insights that have emerged from their work and that could serve as guideposts for others who seek to apply environmental research to policy challenges. By reflecting on successes and failures, we define “success” in applied environmental science as respectfully conducted, partner-relevant research that is accessible, understandable, and shared, and that can create opportunities for change (e.g., in policy, behaviour, management). Next, we generated a list of best practices for delivering “successful” applied environmental research. Our guidance emphasizes the importance of engaging early and often, in a respectful manner, with partners, generating high-quality, relevant research (which requires flexibility), having a plan for communicating and sharing outputs, and being transparent about uncertainties and limitations. Other important considerations include acknowledging partners for involvement and training early career researchers in applied partnership research. Finally, we generated a list of specific, measurable indicators for evaluating success including: quality and quantity of scientific outputs, the relationship with the partner(s), relevance and connectedness of the research, accessibility and availability of outputs to users, provision of outputs that are digestible and usable by different audiences, training and capacity building, and ultimate outcomes (e.g., including social, environmental, and economic outcomes, as well as partner satisfaction). We encourage those embarking on applied environmental research to consider embracing the strategies, to continuously reflect on progress toward shared research goals, and to be flexible. Doing so will increase the likelihood of delivering research that is “successful” and in doing so contribute to overcoming and addressing environmental issues and problems.
... When researcher-participant social contact is high-as is the case with proctored laboratory questionnaires-participants who respond carelessly may incur heavy psychological costs. This happens because proximity to the researcher imposes several features that can make behaving carelessly uncomfortable: Proximity, for instance, may cause participants to like the researcher (see Moon, 1999) and empathize with his or her requests (see Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). These qualities, however, are largely absent when participants complete a study questionnaire online. ...
Is there a point within a self-report questionnaire where participants will start responding carelessly? If so, then after how many items do participants reach that point? And what can researchers do to encourage participants to remain careful throughout the entirety of a questionnaire? We conducted two studies (Study 1 N = 358; Study 2 N = 129) to address these questions. Our results found (a) consistent evidence that participants responded more carelessly as they progressed further into a questionnaire, (b) mixed evidence that participants who were warned that carelessness would be punished displayed smaller increases in carelessness, and (c) mixed evidence that increases in carelessness were greater within an unproctored online study (Study 1) than within a proctored laboratory study (Study 2). These findings help address when and why careless responding is likely to occur, and they suggest effective preventive strategies.
... A recent study documents that compliance with requests communicated through e-mail (i.e. computer-mediated text) is often overestimated (Roghanizad and Bohns, 2017). The results of these studies confirm that videotaped messages tend to facilitate a more impactful communication. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine potential determinants of management’s agreement with internal auditor recommendations of an interim assurance engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
The experiment involved a 2 × 2 × 2 design with internal auditor gender, mode of communication and root cause variables randomly assigned to 228 experienced managers.
Findings
When the internal auditor includes a root cause for an identified deficiency in an internal audit report, management perceptions of the quality of that report improve. The gender of the internal auditor who communicates the audit finding with management does not significantly impact management’s perceptions. Additionally, communicating the internal audit report via e-mail instead of videoconference results in improved managerial perceptions of the quality of the internal auditor. While improvements in perceptions of internal auditor quality lead to greater agreement with internal auditor recommendations, improvements in perceptions of report quality lead to greater implementation of internal-auditor-recommended remediation strategies.
Research limitations/implications
The operationalization of the manipulated variables of interest (communication mode, gender and root cause) may limit the generalizability of the study’s results.
Practical implications
The paper includes managerial implications for internal auditors’ choice of communication mode and inclusion of a root cause in interim internal audit reports.
Originality/value
This study provides evidence on the factors that could improve management’s perceptions of internal auditors’ work. The findings can help organizations, such as the Institute of Internal Auditors, to better understand how to address the needs of those who communicate with internal auditors.
... A sample size of 25 primary participants per condition has 80% power to detect underestimation-of-compliance effects of d = 0.40 or greater. Underestimation-of-compliance effects are typically larger than this, e.g., d = 1.10 in Study 1 of Flynn and Bohns (2008), d = 1.00 in Study 1 of Roghanizad and Bohns (2017). In this experiment (and Studies 1b and 2), primary participants received $15.00 in two installments ($5 at the first lab session; $10 at the second lab session). ...
Those seeking help systematically underestimate the likelihood that strangers will help them (Bohns, 2016). However, it is not known whether this same error persists when requesting help from people with whom we interact regularly. In three experiments (the last of which was pre-registered), participants (N = 310) predicted the likelihood that either their friends or strangers would agree to a request for help. Participants then approached members of one of these two groups (i.e., friends or strangers) with this request (N = 953). We confirmed our predictions that (1) overall help-seekers would underestimate the likelihood that those they approached for help would agree to their requests and that (2) this underestimation error would be smaller for participants making requests of friends. We also found that (3) the underestimation effect persists even for those making requests of friends and (4) help-seekers expected the rate of helping between the two groups to vary more than it did. We discuss and test several mechanisms that might account for these effects. These findings suggest people may over-rely on their friends, and discount the role of strangers, when seeking help.
... Future research may extend our results to face to face communication, which offers different opportunities and constraints than online solicitations. In particular, saying no is more unpleasant in face to face communication (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017) and may lead to a stronger need for justification, and thus, a stronger reassessment of the request and the requester. Finally, we note that the mechanisms we investigated, and their implications, may also apply beyond the domain of charity donations. ...
We extend research on charity donations by exploring an everyday tactic for increasing compliance: asking politely. We consider three possible effects of politeness on charity donations: a positive effect, a negative effect, and a wiggle‐room effect where the perception of the request is adjusted to decline donating without feeling selfish. Results from six experiments systematically supported the polite wiggle‐room effect. In hypothetical donations contexts, indirect requests were judged more polite. In real donation contexts, though, indirect requests were not judged as more polite and had no consistent effect on donation decision. Rather, the decision to donate predicted the perceived politeness of the request, independently of its phrasing. Experiment 4 provided causal evidence that participants justified their donation decisions by adjusting their perception of the request. The polite wiggle‐room effect has important implications for organizations that seek to increase compliance while maintaining a positive image.
... In these studies, participants consistently and substantially underestimated the likelihood that others would comply with their direct, face-to-face requests, because they underestimated the power of the strong social forces that drive people to say "yes" (by making it awkward and uncomfortable to say "no") in these situations. These findings have since been replicated and extended in numerous follow-up studies (Bohns et al., 2011Newark, Bohns, & Flynn, 2017;Newark, Flynn, & Bohns, 2014;Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). This underestimation-of-compliance effect, like the invisibility cloak, would predict an overall tendency to underestimate one's influence over others. ...
Purpose We explore how, and how accurately, people assess their influence over others’ behavior and attitudes. We describe the process by which a person would determine whether he or she was responsible for changing someone else’s behavior or attitude, and the perceptual, motivational, and cognitive factors that are likely to impact whether an influencer’s claims of responsibility are excessive, insufficient, or accurate. Methodology/approach We first review classic work on social influence, responsibility or blame attribution, and perceptions of control, identifying a gap in the literature with respect to understanding how people judge their own responsibility for other people’s behavior and attitudes. We then draw from a wide range of social psychological research to propose a model of how an individual would determine his or her degree of responsibility for someone else’s behavior or attitude. Practical implications A potential influencer’s beliefs about the extent of his or her influence can determine whether he or she engages in an influence attempt, how he or she engages in such an attempt, and whether he or she takes responsibility for another person’s behavior or beliefs. Originality/value of paper For decades, scholars researching social influence have explored how one’s behavior and attitudes are shaped by one’s social environment. However, amidst this focus on the perspective of the target of social influence, the perspective of the influencer has been ignored. This paper addresses the largely neglected question of how much responsibility influencers take for the impact their words, actions, and presence have on others. © 2018 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
... This occurred because more Calgary patients received completion requests in person during subsequent follow-up visits; whereas more Edmonton patients were followed-up over email. This finding is consistent with previous studies that found face-to-face requests to be more successful than email requests [48]. A future sensitivity analysis could be performed to further examine the impact of this difference; however, bias resulting from non-response in surveys is difficult to assess since information about non-responders is rarely available. ...
Background:
Measuring quality in healthcare is vital in evaluating patient outcomes and system performance. The availability of reliable and valid information about the quality of care for patients presenting with rotator cuff disorders (RCD) in Alberta, Canada is scarce. The objective of this study is to measure quality of care for patients with RCD in order to identify areas of improvement.
Methods:
This study employs descriptive survey research design. Between March 2015 and November 2016, a convenience sample of patients presenting with chronic, full-thickness rotator cuff tears to two sport medicine centres in Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta completed two questionnaires: the Healthcare Access and Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (HAPSQ) and the Rotator Cuff Quality-of-Life Index (RC-QOL). Data collected using both questionnaires were used to make judgments about quality of care. Quality of care was evaluated using six dimensions of quality defined by the Alberta Quality Matrix for Health: accessibility, acceptability, efficiency, effectiveness, appropriateness, and safety. Data was also used to compare current patient clinical pathways to ideal clinical pathway algorithms and used to make judgments about the appropriateness and safety of healthcare practices.
Results:
One hundred seventy-one patients participated in the study. The longest mean waiting times for medical services in Alberta were for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) received in the public sector (103 days) and consultation by orthopaedic surgeon (172 days). Patient satisfaction with respect to quality of care was lowest for emergency room physician and highest for orthopaedic surgeon visits. Patients were treated by a mean of 2.5 physicians (SD: 0.77, range: 2-7). The total aggregate average cost per patient was $4541.19. The mean RC-QOL score for all patients was 42 (SD: 22). Only 54 patients (64%) requiring surgery were able to consult with a surgeon within benchmark timeframes. A comparison of current to ideal clinical pathway algorithms found that 38 patients (22%) experienced indirect clinical pathways, whereby care was fragmented and patients received care from multiple and often, redundant healthcare professionals.
Conclusion:
There is a discrepancy between current and ideal clinical pathways whereby some patients are experiencing quality of care that is inefficient, disjointed, and less than ideal.
... Communicators tend to overestimate the degree to which recipients will comply with email (vs. face-to-face) requests, as well as the degree to which email requests will seem trustworthy (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). Relatedly, the potential for misunderstanding is higher in mediated communication (Waterworth & Waterworth, 2006). ...
Precision medicine (PM) draws upon individual biological and psychosocial factors to create a personalized approach to healthcare. To date, little is known about how healthcare consumers will respond to such highly personalized guidance and treatment. The assumption is that responses will generally be favorable; yet in the media and in online public discussions about PM, concerns have been raised about invasions of privacy and autonomy. Findings from the tailoring literature—relevant because PM is, in a sense, “hypertailoring”—similarly suggest a potential for provoking unintended consequences such as personalization reactance, wherein perceived threat to one’s privacy or freedom can lead to rejection of the personalized message or its source. Here, we review extant tailoring and other relevant research to identify challenges that could arise in PM communication. We then draw upon a patient-centered communication perspective to highlight elements of the communication process wherein resistance could be mitigated. This review aims to provide preliminary guidance for practitioners when communicating with patients and healthcare consumers about PM, as well as point scholars toward fruitful topics for research in this emerging health communication area.
... A similar parallel can be drawn with the optimization of dislocated work processes, where communication between individuals is key for the realization of a set goal. Here we must emphasize, that direct graphically conditioned communication is significantly more effective than the exchange of written messages using email or chatrooms [11]. Virtual reality thus presents itself as an effective alternative, mostly due to the cognitive perception of messages, which is similar to real relationships [12]. ...
This paper takes the form of a discussion article that briefly analyses the societal and technological progress of individual and group interactions within virtual reality space. From basic interactions between simplified avatars in the early 1990s to more complex ones in recent years, we are witnessing the drastic popularization of virtual reality as a social tool-or social VR for short. In this article, we will take a look at early virtual reality environments, where individuals could interact both with modular objects and other individuals. To better understand recent trends, we will compare the aforementioned with modern virtual spaces and discuss their use. We will also set two examples, which point towards potential merging of the now fragmented and separated virtual environments in the near future and, in doing so, discuss the future pathways of social VR.
... Podobno vzporednico bi lahko potegnili z optimizacijo dislociranih delovnih procesov, kjer je komunikacija med posamezniki ključna za realizacijo izbranega cilja. Ob tem poudarimo, da je neposredna grafično pogojena komunikacija bistveno učinkovitejša od pisne izmenjave sporočil s pomočjo spletne pošte ali klepetalnice [11]. Navidezna resničnost se tako kaže kot učinkovita alternativa predvsem zaradi kognitivne percepcije prejetih sporočil, ki je podobna stvarnim odnosom [12]. ...
This paper overtakes the form of a discussion article that briefly analyses the societal and
technological progress of individual and group interactions within virtual reality space. From basic interactions between simplified avatars in early 90. to more complex ones in recent year, we are witnessing the drastic popularization of virtual reality as social tool or
social VR for short.
In this article, we will take a look over early virtual reality environments where individuals could interact both with modular objects and other individuals. For the purpose of deeper understanding of recent trends, we will compare them with modern virtual spaces and
discuss their use. We will also set two examples that point towards potential merging of now fragmented and separated virtual environments in the near future and by that discuss the future pathways of social VR.
The outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) had an enormous economic and social impact on Chinese hog producers. Using a face‐to‐face survey with hog farmers from two regions of China, Chongqing, and Hebei, this research investigated how social influence affects producers’ behavior under disease outbreak using social network analysis. It was analyzed how information flows during an epidemic, such as ASF. Results indicate that hog producers used phone and text more frequently to communicate during the epidemic than before. Face‐to‐face meetings with other hog producers and sales agents decreased during the ASF epidemic—potentially leading to isolation. Moreover, the frequency of face‐to‐face meetings with veterinarians decreased for farmers living in a village in Hebei but remained the same for hog producers in Chongqing. This suggests that the desire to have less face‐to‐face meetings was being replaced with the demand for more help regarding hog health from veterinarians when hog producers lived farther away from each other compared to those living closer together. Employing a random effect ordered probit model, these results were further validated, showing that hog producers dramatically reduced their communication frequency with others after the outbreak of ASF. Findings provide insights into how information flows and how actors communicate during a situation of crisis. [EconLit Citations: D71, D85, Q12, Q18].
Introduction
Technological advancements have transformed our business as well as social interactions. A recent trend is the increasing use of smartphones for work and customer engagement. Given that smartphones have been associated with a heightened sense of personal ownership and moral disengagement we argue that this may have negative implications for ethical behavior.
Method
To evaluate this conjecture we ran an experiment comparing dishonesty when using pen and paper, a desktop computer, or a smartphone. We make this comparison in both a setting where dishonesty benefits another (mutual-gain) and one where it harms another (constant-sum).
Results
We find higher levels of dishonesty when using a smartphone than pen and paper. We find relatively high levels of dishonesty when using a desktop computer in the mutual-gain setting but low levels in the constant-sum setting.
Discussion
Our results are consistent with the conjecture that smartphone use can lead to less ethical behavior.
JEL codes
C72, C91.
Performing acts of kindness increases well-being, yet people can be reluctant to ask for help that would enable others’ kindness. We suggest that people may be overly reluctant because of miscalibrated expectations about others’ prosocial motivation, underestimating how positively others will feel when asked for help. A pretest identified that interest in asking for help was correlated with expectations of how helpers would think and feel, but a series of scenarios, recalled experiences, and live interactions among adult participants in the United States (total N = 2,118) indicated that those needing help consistently underestimated others’ willingness to help, underestimated how positively helpers would feel, and overestimated how inconvenienced helpers would feel. These miscalibrated expectations stemmed from underestimating helpers’ prosocial motivation while overestimating compliance motivation. This research highlights a limitation of construing help-seeking through a lens of compliance by scholars and laypeople alike. Undervaluing prosociality could create a misplaced barrier to asking for help when needed.
When conversing with skeptical listeners, honest speakers face the challenge of proving the credibility of their message. What can speakers do? We argue that incurring a cost—in terms of time, effort, emotion, reputation, etc.—to send a message can be a convincing signal of honesty to the listener. We highlight three qualities of signals that can make them costly for different reasons: difficult-to-fake, verifiable, and self-sacrificing. We propose that, while each quality impacts the listener’s perceptions of veracity, assessing each quality requires a different set of evaluations by the listener. As a result, assessments of each quality are subject to distinct errors in listener perception. Moreover, perceiving a signaling cost to be deliberate (vs. accidental) further impacts perceived veracity, but does so differently depending on the type of cost. Our costly signal framework can help guide speakers in overcoming listener skepticism.
This paper analyzes the relationship among occupations at risk to be performed from home (WFH), workers' characteristics, and the evolution of wages. To this aim, we use a dataset which integrates information on the task-content of occupations (ICP-Inapp survey), flow data on activations and terminations of contractual work arrangements
(SISCO-MLPS), and data on employees' wages (Inps archive) over the period 2011-2018. By applying simple regression models, we show a significant positive correlation between the feasibility of working from home and wage gains. However, this correlation is highly conditioned by socio-demographic and employment characteristics of workers. In particular, the feasibility of working from home implies a wage gap for women and for those workers employed under fixed-term contracts. Finally, we discuss some policy implications of these results.
In the phishing email literature, recent researchers have given much attention to individual differences in phishing susceptibility from the perspective of the Big Five personality traits. Although the effectiveness and advantages of the phishing susceptibility measures in the signal detection theory (SDT) framework have been verified, the cognitive mechanisms that lead to individual differences in these measures remain unknown. The current study proposed and examined a theoretical path model to explore how the Big Five personality traits, related knowledge and experience and the cognitive processing of emails (i.e., mail elaboration) influence users’ susceptibility to phishing emails. A sample of 414 Chinese participants completed the 44-item Big Five Personality Inventory (BFI-44), Mail Elaboration Scale (MES), Web Experience Questionnaire, Experience with Electronic Mail Scale, Knowledge and Technical Background Test and a demographic questionnaire. The phishing susceptibility measures were calculated after the participants finished an email legitimacy task in a role-playing scenario. The results showed that the general profile of the “victim personality” included low conscientiousness, low openness and high neuroticism, and Internet experience and computer and web knowledge played an important role. All of these factors have significant indirect effects on phishing susceptibility by influencing mail elaboration. Moreover, the probabilities of checking for further information or deleting the email reflect the sensitivity of email judgment. These findings reveal the mediating role of cognitive processing between individual factors and phishing susceptibility. The theoretical implications of this study for the phishing susceptibility literature and its applications to phishing risk interventions or training programs are discussed.
Email and text-based communication have become ubiquitous. Although recent findings indicate emotional equivalence between face-to-face and email communication, there is limited evidence of nonverbal behaviors in text-based communication, especially the kinds of unintentional displays central to emotion perception in face-to-face interactions. We investigate whether unintentional emotion cues occur in text-based communication by proposing that communication mistakes (e.g., typos) influence emotion perception. Across six studies, we show that communication errors amplify perceptions of email sender’s emotions—both negative (Studies 1A–2, 4, 5) and positive (Study 3). Furthermore, by contrasting perceptions of message senders who make mistakes in emotional versus unemotional contexts (Study 5), we show that people partially excuse message sender communication errors in emotional (versus unemotional) contexts, attributing such mistakes to the sender’s emotional state rather than solely their intelligence level. These studies suggest that nonverbal behavior in text-based and face-to-face communication may be more comparable than previously thought.
Understanding the characteristics of social judgments in helping and help-seeking is profoundly essential to facilitate efficient and satisfactory interactions among human beings. Potential helpers and help-recipients have asymmetric perceptions in several aspects, including likelihood of seeking or receiving help, efforts invested in helping, anticipated emotions, and preferred manners in which aid is given. In consequence, they frequently mispredict how others truly think, feel and behave, which may inhibit the occurrence of cooperation and the spread of prosocial behavior. We propose that such prediction errors are inevitable under the joint influence of individual cognitive limitations and social factors. To bridge the gap between helpers and help-recipients, individuals and organizations should take its causes into account. Future research is encouraged to investigate the manifestation of prediction errors in online helping, emotional assistance, and between close others.
We present a theoretical model that describes the interaction between social and human capital and the different forms that such an interaction may take – positive and negative. Extending the concepts of stocks and flows of knowledge, this model evaluates social capital flows against human capital stocks. When we compare these flows to the value of human capital, we are able to better understand how these resources can interact with each other, influence global talent development, and change over time. We discuss the implications for practices in global talent management in selecting, developing, and harnessing talent.
Research has shown a robust tendency for people to underestimate their ability to get others to comply with their requests. In five studies, we demonstrate that this underestimation-of-compliance effect is reduced when requesters offer money in exchange for compliance. In Studies 1 and 2, participants assigned to no-incentive or monetary-incentive conditions made actual requests of others. In both studies, requesters who offered no incentives underestimated the likelihood that those they approached would grant their requests; however, when
requesters offered monetary incentives, this prediction error was mitigated. In Studies 3-5, we present evidence in support of a model to explain the underlying mechanism for this attenuation effect. Studies 3 and 4 demonstrate that offering monetary incentives activates a money-market frame. In Study 5, we find that this activation reduces the discomfort associated with asking, allowing requesters to more accurately assess the size of their request and, consequently, the likelihood of compliance.
I review a burgeoning program of research examining people’s perceptions of their influence over others. This research demonstrates that people are overly pessimistic about their ability to get others to comply with their requests. Participants in our studies have asked more than 14,000 strangers a variety of requests. We find that participants underestimate the likelihood that the people they approach will comply with their requests. This error is robust (it persists across various samples and requests) and substantial (on average, requesters underestimate compliance by 48%). We find that this error results from requesters’ failure to appreciate the awkwardness of saying “no” to a request. In addition to reviewing evidence for the underestimation-of-compliance effect and its underlying mechanism, I discuss some factors that have been found to strengthen, attenuate, and reverse the effect. This research offers a starting point for examining a neglected perspective in influence research: the psychological perspective of the influence source.
Understanding how consumers evaluate website trustworthiness is a critical factor for online vendors. The dominant view espouses a deliberative trust formation process whereby shoppers evaluate security certificates, return policies, user feedback and the like, implying a highly rational underlying trust calculus. In this paper we use a laboratory experiment to explore an alternative perspective, based on the non-rational associative reasoning approach. Our findings show that when faced with a no-risk hypothetical decision about whether or not they would purchase a book from an online bookseller, subjects’ decision-making processes were indeed consistent with the dominant deliberative view. However, when confronted with a decision entailing risk (i.e., sharing sensitive personal information with an unknown website), subjects became reliant on their non-rational, gut-level intuition. We adopt a dual-process reasoning theory to make sense of these findings, and recommend that vendors take into account associative reasoning factors when designing online interfaces. Future research directions are provided.
New marketing paradigms that exploit the capabilities for data collection, aggregation, and dissemination introduced by the Internet provide benefits to consumers but also pose real or perceived privacy hazards. In four experiments, we seek to understand consumer decisions to reveal or withhold information and the relationship between such decisions and objective hazards posed by information revelation. Our central thesis, and a central finding of all four experiments, is that disclosure of private information is responsive to environmental cues that bear little connection, or are even inversely related, to objective hazards. We address underlying processes and rule out alternative explanations by eliciting subjective judgments of the sensitivity of inquiries (experiment 3) and by showing that the effect of cues diminishes if privacy concern is activated at the outset of the experiment (experiment 4). This research highlights consumer vulnerabilities in navigating increasingly complex privacy issues introduced by new information technologies.
We examined the psychology of "instigators," people who surround an unethical act and influence the wrongdoer (the "actor") without directly committing the act themselves. In four studies, we found that instigators of unethical acts underestimated their influence over actors. In Studies 1 and 2, university students enlisted other students to commit a "white lie" (Study 1) or commit a small act of vandalism (Study 2) after making predictions about how easy it would be to get their fellow students to do so. In Studies 3 and 4, online samples of participants responded to hypothetical vignettes, for example, about buying children alcohol and taking office supplies home for personal use. In all four studies, instigators failed to recognize the social pressure they levied on actors through simple unethical suggestions, that is, the discomfort actors would experience by making a decision that was inconsistent with the instigator's suggestion.
The theory of the niche predicts that a new medium will compete with established media for consumer satisfaction, consumer time, and / or consumer advertising dollars. Competition between e-mail and telephone use was measured in this study at the level of gratifications derived by consumers. Gratifications and gratification opportunities (consumers' beliefs that a medium allows them to obtain greater opportunities for satisfaction) were derived from an analysis of open-ended questions. A second sample was interviewed by telephone and rated both mediums on gratification and gratification-opportunity scales. Forty-eight percent of respondents reported using the phone less since they adopted e-mail. Results indicate that a wider spectrum of needs is being served by the telephone, whereas e-mail provides greater gratification opportunities. The results indicate competition, but also indicate that the two mediums are not close substitutes.
This study examined the relationships among nonverbal behaviors, dimensions of source credibility, and speaker persuasiveness in a public speaking context. Relevant nonverbal literature was organized according to a Brunswikian lens model. Nonverbal behavioral composites, grouped according to their likely proximal percepts, were hypothesized to significantly affect both credibility and persuasiveness. A sample of 60 speakers gave videotaped speeches that were judged on credibility and persuasiveness by classmates. Pairs of trained raters coded 22 vocalic, kinesic, and proxemic nonverbal behaviors evidenced in the tapes. Results confirmed numerous associations between nonverbal behaviors and attributions of credibility and persuasiveness. Greater perceived competence and composure were associated with greater vocal and facial pleasantness, with greater facial expressiveness contributing to competence perceptions. Greater sociability was associated with more kinesic/proxemic immediacy, dominance, and relaxation and with vocal pleasantness. Most of these same cues also enhanced character judgments. No cues were related to dynamism judgments. Greater perceived persuasiveness correlated with greater vocal pleasantness (especially fluency and pitch variety), kinesic/proxemic immediacy, facial expressiveness, and kinesic relaxation (especially high random movement but little tension). All five dimensions of credibility related to persuasiveness. Advantages of analyzing nonverbal cues according to proximal percepts are discussed.
Investigated whether, while discussing his or her views, a communicator who exhibits limb-outward or open body positions would effect greater opinion change in an addressee than a communicator who exhibits limb-inward or closed body positions. 96 female college undergraduates whose attitudes were premeasured perused an attitude questionnaire of a female student and then viewed pictures that were taken of her while she discussed her beliefs. Some Ss viewed open body position pictures of the communicator, while others viewed closed body position pictures. Retesting of the Ss' opinions showed a change toward the communicator's viewpoint for Ss who had viewed "open" pictures compared with Ss who had viewed "closed" pictures of the communicator (p < .01).
People use weak ties—relationships with acquaintances or strangers—to seek help unavailable from friends or colleagues. Yet in the absence of personal relationships or the expectation of direct reciprocity, help from weak ties might not be forthcoming or could be of low quality. We examined the practice of distant employees (strangers) exchanging technical advice through a large organizational computer network. A survey of advice seekers and those who replied was conducted to test hypotheses about the viability and usefulness of such electronic weak tie exchanges.
Theories of organizational motivation suggest that positive regard for the larger organization can substitute for direct incentives or personal relationships in motivating people to help others. Theories of weak ties suggest that the usefulness of this help may depend on the number of ties, the diversity of ties, or the resources of help providers. We hypothesized that, in an organizational context, the firm-specific resources and organizational motivation of people who provide advice will predict the usefulness of advice.
We investigated these theories in a study of employees of a global computer manufacturer. We collected survey and observational data on the relationships between information seekers and information providers; the number, diversity, resources, and motivations of information providers, and subjective ratings of the usefulness of the advice (from both parties in the exchange) and whether or not the advice solved information seekers' problems.
We found that information providers gave useful advice and solved the problems of information seekers, despite their lack of a personal connection with the seekers. The data support the main hypotheses and provide some support for resource and diversity explanations of weak tie influence. We discuss how this organization's culture sustained useful intormation exchange through weak ties.
The medical profession is under a state of increasing scrutiny. Recent high profile scandals regarding substantial industry payments to physicians, surgeons, and medical researchers have raised serious concerns over conflicts of interest. Amidst this background, the public, physicians, and policymakers alike appear to make the same assumption regarding conflicts of interest; that doctors who succumb to influences from industry are making a deliberate choice of self-interest over professionalism and that these doctors are corrupt. In reality, a myriad of evidence from social science indicates that influence from conflicts of interest often occurs on a subconscious and unintentional level. This poses an important issue, since such conflicts can steer wellintentioned physicians away from their primary professional goal to provide the best medical advice and treatment possible.
A series of studies tested whether people underestimate the likelihood that others will comply with their direct requests for help. In the first 3 studies, people underestimated by as much as 50% the likelihood that others would agree to a direct request for help, across a range of requests occurring in both experimental and natural field settings. Studies 4 and 5 demonstrated that experimentally manipulating a person’s perspective (as help seeker or potential helper) could elicit this underestimation effect. Finally, in Study 6, the authors explored the source of the bias, finding that help seekers were less willing than potential helpers were to appreciate the social costs of refusing a direct request for help (the costs of saying “no”), attending instead to the instrumental costs of helping (the costs of saying “yes”).
This paper examines electronic mail in organizational communication. Based on ideas about how social context cues within a communication setting affect information exchange, it argues that electronic mail does not simply speed up the exchange of information but leads to the exchange of new information as well. In a field study in a Fortune 500 company, we used questionnaire data and actual messages to examine electronic mail communication at all levels of the organization. Based on hypotheses from research on social communication, we explored effects of electronic communication related to self-absorption, status equalization, and uninhibited behavior. Consistent with experimental studies, we found that decreasing social context cues has substantial deregulating effects on communication. And we found that much of the information conveyed through electronic mail was information that would not have been conveyed through another medium.
Email consumes significant time and attention in the workplace. We conducted an organizational survey to understand how and why people attend to incoming email messages. We examined people's ratings of message importance and the actions they took on specific email messages, based on message characteristics and characteristics of receivers and senders. Respondents kept half of their new messages in the inbox and replied to about a third of them. They rated messages as important if they were about work and required action. Importance, in turn, had a modest impact on whether people replied to their incoming messages and whether they saved them. The results indicate that factors other than message importance (e.g., their social nature) also determine how people handle email. Overall, email usage reflects attentional differences due both to personal propensities and to work demands and relationships.
We report the results of a randomized field experiment involving approximately 30,000 registered voters in New Haven, Connecticut. Nonpartisan get-out-the-vote messages were conveyed through personal canvassing, direct mail, and telephone calls shortly before the November 1998 election. A variety of substantive messages were used. Voter turnout was increased substantially by personal canvassing, slightly by direct mail, and not at all by telephone calls. These findings support our hypothesis that the long-term retrenchment in voter turnout is partly attributable to the decline in face-to-face political mobilization.
The authors propose that people adopt others' perspectives by serially adjusting from their own. As predicted, estimates of others' perceptions were consistent with one's own but differed in a manner consistent with serial adjustment (Study 1). Participants were slower to indicate that another's perception would be different from--rather than similar to--their own (Study 2). Egocentric biases increased under time pressure (Study 2) and decreased with accuracy incentives (Study 3). Egocentric biases also increased when participants were more inclined to accept plausible values encountered early in the adjustment process than when inclined to reject them (Study 4). Finally, adjustments tend to be insufficient, in part, because people stop adjusting once a plausible estimate is reached (Study 5).
Without the benefit of paralinguistic cues such as gesture, emphasis, and intonation, it can be difficult to convey emotion and tone over electronic mail (e-mail). Five experiments suggest that this limitation is often underappreciated, such that people tend to believe that they can communicate over e-mail more effectively than they actually can. Studies 4 and 5 further suggest that this overconfidence is born of egocentrism, the inherent difficulty of detaching oneself from one's own perspective when evaluating the perspective of someone else. Because e-mail communicators "hear" a statement differently depending on whether they intend to be, say, sarcastic or funny, it can be difficult to appreciate that their electronic audience may not.
Friendsourcing consists of broadcasting questions and help requests to friends on social networking sites. Despite its potential value, friendsourcing requests often fall on deaf ears. One way to improve response rates and motivate friends to undertake more effortful tasks may be to offer extrinsic rewards, such as money or a gift, for responding to friendsourcing requests. However, past research suggests that these extrinsic rewards can have unintended consequences, including undermining intrinsic motivations and undercutting the relationship between people. To explore the effects of extrinsic reward on friends' response rate and perceived relationship, we conducted an experiment on a new friendsourcing platform - Mobilyzr. Results indicate that large extrinsic rewards increase friends' response rates without reducing the relationship strength between friends. Additionally, the extrinsic rewards allow requesters to explain away the failure of friendsourcing requests and thus preserve their perceptions of relationship ties with friends.
Research has shown that people underestimate their ability to influence others through social-emotional means. We demonstrate that people are more aware of their ability to influence others through economic means. In three behavioral studies, participants made actual requests (both prosocial and unethical) of other people. Requesters offered targets either no incentives, small monetary incentives, or non-monetary incentives in exchange for compliance. Replicating previous research, requesters substantially underestimated the likelihood that the people they approached would agree to their requests when offering no incentives and non-monetary incentives. However, offering small monetary incentives mitigated requesters’ tendency to underestimate compliance. This occurred despite the fact that incentive type had no bearing on actual compliance. A scenario study comparing two potential mediating mechanisms found that requesters’ ability to predict compliance more accurately when offering monetary incentives resulted from increased feelings of personal confidence when making a request, rather than lay theories of motivation that overemphasize extrinsic incentives.
Four studies examined help-seekers’ beliefs about how past refusals affect future compliance. In Study 1, help-seekers were more likely than potential helpers to believe that a previous refusal would lead a potential helper to deny a subsequent request of similar size. Study 2 replicated this effect, and found that help-seekers underestimated the actual compliance rate of potential helpers who had previously refused to help. Studies 3 and 4 explain this asymmetry. Whereas potential helpers’ willingness to comply with a subsequent request stems from the discomfort of rejecting others not once, but twice, help-seekers rely on dispositonal attributions of helpfulness to estimate the likelihood of hearing “yes” from someone who has previously told them “no.”
Previous research conducted in the United States has demonstrated that help-seekers fail to appreciate the embarrassment and awkwardness (i.e., social costs) targets would experience by saying "no" to a request for help. Underestimation of such social costs leads help-seekers to underestimate the likelihood that others will comply with their requests. We hypothesized that this error would be attenuated in a collectivistic culture. We conducted a naturalistic help-seeking study in the U.S. and China and found that Chinese help-seekers were more accurate than American help-seekers at predicting compliance. A supplementary scenario study in which we measured individual differences in collectivistic and individualistic orientations within a single culture provided converging evidence for the association between collectivism and expectations of compliance. In both cases, the association between collectivism (culturally defined or measured) and predicted compliance was mediated by participants' ratings of the social costs of saying "no".
One-hundred twenty-eight subjects (64 female, 64 male) viewed either a babyfaced or maturefaced female speaker delivering a persuasive communication, and also received information designed to make the speaker seem either untrustworthy or inexpert. Subjects indicated how much they agreed with the speaker''s position and completed other measures concerning her appearance and their perceptions of her speech. Babyfaced speakers induced more agreement with their position than did maturefaced speakers when trustworthiness was in question, presumably because babyfaced speakers still appeared honest due to their babyish facial features. Conversely, maturefaced speakers produced more attitude agreement as compared to babyfaced speakers when expertise was questioned, perhaps because knowledgeability was still communicated via their mature countenance. Attitude change was not related to perceived likability, age, attractiveness, or communication skills of the speakers, or subjects'' interest in the topic.
Under-contribution is a problem for many online communities. Social psychology theories of social loafing and goal-setting can provide mid-level design principles to address this problem. We tested the design principles in two field experiments. In one, members of an online movie recommender community were reminded of the uniqueness of their contributions and the benefits that follow from them. In the second, they were given a range of individual or group goals for contribution. As predicted by theory, individuals contributed when they were reminded of their uniqueness and when they were given specific and challenging goals, but other predictions were not borne out. The paper ends with suggestions and challenges for mining social science theories as well as implications for design.
Despite considerable evidence indicating that our perceptions of people's psychological attributes are strongly tied to their facial appearance, there has been almost no systematic and theoretically guided research on this topic. The ecological approach to social perception (McArthur & Baron, 1983) holds that facial characteristics may influence impressions if they typically reveal psychological attributes whose detection is important for adaptive functioning. For example, the facial characteristics that identify infants should reveal their helplessness. The ecological approach further predicts that a strong attunement to adaptively significant facial characteristics may be overgeneralized. In particular, it is hypothesized that adults with immature facial qualities are perceived to have childlike psychological attributes. The research we review provides strong support for this prediction. More specifically, adults with various childlike facial qualities are perceived to afford more warmth, more submission, more honesty, less physical strength, and more naivete than those with more mature faces. Implications of the ecological approach for further research on face perception are discussed.
People often draw trait inferences from the facial appearance of other people. We investigated the minimal conditions under which people make such inferences. In five experiments, each focusing on a specific trait judgment, we manipulated the exposure time of unfamiliar faces. Judgments made after a 100-ms exposure correlated highly with judgments made in the absence of time constraints, suggesting that this exposure time was sufficient for participants to form an impression. In fact, for all judgments-attractiveness, likeability, trustworthiness, competence, and aggressiveness-increased exposure time did not significantly increase the correlations. When exposure time increased from 100 to 500 ms, participants' judgments became more negative, response times for judgments decreased, and confidence in judgments increased. When exposure time increased from 500 to 1,000 ms, trait judgments and response times did not change significantly (with one exception), but confidence increased for some of the judgments; this result suggests that additional time may simply boost confidence in judgments. However, increased exposure time led to more differentiated person impressions.
Many economists and biologists view cooperation as anomalous: animals (including humans) who pursue their own self-interest have superior survival odds to their altruistic or cooperative neighbors. However, in many situations there are substantial gains to the group that can achieve cooperation among its members, and to individuals who are members of those groups. For an individual, the key to successful cooperation is the ability to identify cooperative partners. The ability to signal and detect the intention to cooperate would be a very valuable skill for humans to posses. Smiling is frequently observed in social interactions between humans, and may be used as a signal of the intention to cooperate. However, given that humans have the ability to smile falsely, the ability to detect intentions may go far beyond the ability to recognize a smile. In the present study, we examine the value of a smile in a simple bargaining context. 120 subjects participate in a laboratory experiment cons...
The value of a helping hand: Help-seekers' predictions of help quality
- D A Newark
- V K Bohns
- F J Flynn
Newark, D. A., Bohns, V. K., & Flynn, F. J. (2016). The value of a helping hand: Help-seekers'
predictions of help quality. Manuscript submitted for publication.