(Mis)Understanding Our Influence Over Others: A Review of the Underestimated-Compliance Effect
Bohns (2016) · Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25(2)
Relied on in 3 places across the academy · 2 stated limits
What it found
Across a body of work on requests, people underestimate how hard it is for others to refuse them: compliance runs higher than askers predict, in part because saying no is more uncomfortable than the asker imagines.
Across studies in which participants asked more than 14,000 strangers for something, the people asking underestimated how many would say yes by 48% on average.
What it does not show
A review of studies in which people asked strangers for small favours — directions, a short survey, a phone. It is about requests, not invitations, and the people asked were strangers who would never be seen again.
And where we carry it further
The review concerns the asker's underestimation. Reading it as instruction for the refuser is our extension of it.
The requests studied were favours and small acts of help, not somebody's company. We are extending the finding.
Where we rely on it
3 places in the academy. If this paper turned out to be wrong, this is the list that would have to change. Some of the instructions below are part of Gold; none of the findings are.
In the curriculum · 2
In the films · 1
Cited alongside it
Papers that sit under the same topics and films. Not a claim that they agree with each other — only that the same exercises lean on both.
Duration Neglect in Retrospective Evaluations of Affective Episodes; When More Pain Is Preferred to Less
Fredrickson & Kahneman (1993); Kahneman, Fredrickson, Schreiber & Redelmeier (1993)Maximizing Exposure Therapy: An Inhibitory Learning Approach
Craske, Treanor, Conway, Zbozinek & Vervliet (2014)Perspective Mistaking: Accurately Understanding the Mind of Another Requires Getting Perspective, Not Taking Perspective
Eyal, Steffel & Epley (2018)The Spotlight Effect in Social Judgment
Gilovich, Medvec & Savitsky (2000)It Doesn't Hurt to Ask: Question-Asking Increases Liking
Huang, Yeomans, Brooks, Minson & Gino (2017)Exposure Effects in the Classroom: The Development of Affinity Among Students
Moreland & Beach (1992)Research
A real study. We tell you what it found, how many people were in it, and what it can't prove.
Free to read, link to and quote. If we have carried this paper further than it goes, say so at contact@suaviq.com — corrections to this registry are the most useful mail we get.