Friday, October 10, 2014

The Serpent of Compliance

Compliance refers to a response — specifically, a submission — made in reaction to a request. The request may be explicit (i.e., foot-in-the-door technique) or implicit (i.e., advertising). The target may or may not recognize that he or she is being urged to act in a particular way.

Social psychology is centered on the idea of social influence. Defined as the effect that the words, actions, or mere presence of other people (real or imagined) have on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behavior; social influence is the driving force behind compliance. It is important that psychologists and ordinary people alike recognize that social influence extends beyond our behavior—to our thoughts, feelings and beliefs—and that it takes on many forms. Persuasion and the gaining of compliance are particularly significant types of social influence since they utilize the respective effect’s power to attain the submission of others. Studying compliance is significant because it is a type of social influence that affects our everyday behavior—especially social interactions. Compliance itself is a complicated concept that must be studied in depth so that its uses, implications and both its theoretical and experimental approaches may be better understood.

Marketing

Research has indicated that compliance techniques have become a major asset to numerous forms of advertising, including Internet shopping sites. Techniques are used to communicate essential information intended to persuade customers. Advertisements and other forms of marketing typically play on the customers’ need for informative and normative social influence. The people in the advertisements and the ads themselves serve as a type of authority. They are credible—especially in regards to the product. As a result, customers’ need to be accurate drives them to comply with the ad's message and to purchase a product that an authority claims he or she needs. Secondly, people have the need to belong. Customers often comply with ads by purchasing certain merchandise in the hopes of affiliating with a particular group. Because compliance techniques play at psychological needs they are frequently successful in selling a product; the use of fear is often less persuasive.

Conclusion

Compliance refers to an implicit or explicit response to a request. Based in the roots of social influence, compliance is studied through the use of many different approaches, contexts, and techniques. The implications of compliance from a psychological standpoint infer that by utilizing various techniques (i.e., foot-in-the-door, ingratiation, etc.), personal needs (i.e., informational and social goals) and/or group characteristics (i.e., strength, immediacy, number). It is important to recognize that people are capable of using, or abusing, compliance in order to gain advantage over others. This has caused controversy in a number of settings, and is still being looked at in depth in order to better understand how to use this social phenomenon in a prosocial manner.

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