Behavioral effects of interpersonal attraction: Compliance with requests from liked and disliked others

Abstract

Sixty undergraduate females participated in an experiment designed to investigate the hypothesis that Ss would be more willing to comply with various requests from liked than from disliked others. Attraction was manipulated by varying both the apparent degree of attitude similarity between Ss and the requester and the favorability of ratings about the Ss ostensibly made by this individual. Results indicated that significantly more Ss complied with the requests of a liked than with those of a disliked other, but only under conditions where the magnitude of these appeals was relatively great. These findings were discussed in terms of their implications for the generalizability of the results of laboratory research on attraction to behavior in naturalistic social situations. © 1971, Psychon. Sci.. All rights reserved.