PSYCH 100B Lecture Notes - Garding, Role-Playing Game System, Academic Press
Hey Buddy, Can You Spare Seventeen Cents?
Mindful Persuasion and the Pique Technique1
MICHAEL
D.
SANTOS, CRAIG
LEVE,
AND
University
of
Califoniu, Santa Cnu
ANTHONY
R.
PRATKANIS~
According to the pique technique,
a
target is more likely to comply if mindless
refusal is disrupted by a strange or unusual request. We demonstrated the use of
this technique in two experiments.
In
Experiment
1,
passersby on a local municipal
wharf were approached by a confederate panhandler who made either one of two
strange requests: “Can you spare
17#
(or
37#)?”
or made either one of two typical
requests “Can you spare a quarter
(or
any change)?” Subjects in the strange conditions
were almost
60%
more likely to give money than those receiving the typical plea.
In
addition, a strange request piqued interest as evidenced by increased verbal inquiries
about the request. Experiment
2
replicated the first experiment in a laboratory setting
and provides additional evidence (via a cognitive response analysis) that strange
requests piqued subjects’ interest in the appeal as well as increased liking for the
panhandler.
The popular image of persuasion is that it occurs when we are in a mindless
state. Television shows and movies such as
The Manchurian Candidate
often
portray influence agents as clever Svengalis and mesmerizers capable of
placing their targets in a mindless trance and controlling their wills. Persuasion
is depicted as an irrational force that operates when our defenses are down
and our mind is at least half-asleep (see Pratkanis
&
Aronson,
1992,
for a
discussion).
Considerable research shows that persuasion can occur when we are in a
mindless state. For example, Langer, Blank, and Chanowitz
(1978)
found that
subjects would mindlessly comply with a request to use a copy machine, if
that request was accompanied by a reason, albeit a silly one. In their study,
confederates asked to cut in front of subjects to make five copies of a page
using one of three requests: just asking, asking with a legitimate reason (I’m
in a rush), or asking with a reason that made little sense
(I
need to make copies).
‘We thank Renee Bator and Samantha Faber for assistance with data collection and Peter
Farquhar, Carrie Fried, and Marlene Turner for comments on an earlier draft of the paper. The
authors also express their sincere appreciation to an anonymous compliance professional working
in downtown Seattle, WA for suggesting the hypotheses investigated in this research.
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Anthony
R.
Pratkanis, Board
of Psychology, University of California, Santa
Cruz,
CA
95064.
755
Journal
of
Applied
Social Psychology,
1994,24,
9,
pp.
755-764.
Copyright
0
1994
by
V.
H.
Winston
&
Son, Inc.
All
rights
reserved.
756
SANTOS,
LEVE,
AND
PRATKANIS
Regardless of the legitimacy of the reason, Langer et al. (1978) found signifi-
cantly more subjects complying with the request when it was given with a
reason. They interpret their results as demonstrating that subjects mindlessly
followed a script that reads: “Favor
X
+
Reason
Y
=
Comply.”
What happens, however, when the mindless response is noncompliance
with a request? For example, consider the typical response to a panhandler’s
plea for spare change on a crowded street comer. In such situations, many
targets have learned to avert their eyes and to continue mindlessly down the
street with their hard-earned change still in their pockets and purses. The
panhandler’s request elicits what can be termed a refusal script.
One possible way to gain compliance in such a situation is to disrupt the
refusal script by employing what
we
call thepique technique. The effective use
of the pique technique involves making the request in an unusual and atypical
manner
so
that the target’s interest is piqued, the refusal script is disrupted, and
the target is induced to think positively about compliance.
For
example, a
restaurant server’s “forgetful” script can be disrupted by asking for a “little
coffee with my sugar.” Advertising readership and effectiveness can be in-
creased with curious headlines and intriguing
picture^.^
A
journal reader’s
mindless “skim it” script can be disrupted by giving an article an atypical title,
thereby gaining higher rates of compliance with the author’s implied request to
read the text.
Experiment
1:
The Wharf Study
Our first experiment sought to demonstrate the effectiveness of the pique
technique for increasing compliance with the panhandler’s request. We imple-
mented the pique technique by asking passersby for unusual or strange amounts
of money (e.g., 17 or 376) as opposed to the typical request for a quarter or any
spare change. If successful, such a strange request should disrupt the refusal
scripts and pique the target’s interest in just why this person needs exactly
17$.
Such mindful activity should lead the target to think about the request and the
panhandler as a real person with real needs, thus making it harder to mindlessly
refuse the request.
Method
Subjects.
Two-hundred and eighty-nine adult passersby at a local municipal
30ne
of
the first to identify the components
of
the pique technique was the advertiser and
former vice-president of Batten, Barton, Durstine, and
Osborn,
John Caples. According
to
Caples
(1974),
one type of effective advertising provokes curiosity (through headlines
or
pictures) and
combines it with a strong sales message (ensuring positive cognitive responses).
THE PIQUE TECHNIQUE
757
wharf were randomly assigned to a
2
(Specificity of Request: Typical or
Strange)
x
2
(Amount Requested: Low or High) design. Subjects were never
aware that they had participated in the study. Data was collected during
daylight hours on varying days of the week for a 3-week period in the fall of
1990.
Confederates.
Three female confederates posed as panhandlers.4 The con-
federates were all undergraduates (ages
20
to
2
1) who were instructed to wear
“normal school clothes” such as bluejeans, tee shirts, and denim jackets and to
avoid wearing conspicuous jewelry. Verbal report data and our “panhandlers”’
reports suggest that passersby perceived our confederates as typical panhan-
dlers. For example, several subjects said “get a job” and one even went
so
far
as to say, “panhandling is illegal in Santa Cruz. We have a nice jail here you’d
enjoy.”
In
fact, the experiment experienced
two
false starts when our confed-
erates quit because of hostility from subjects concerning their requests for
money.
Procedure.
Confederates approached each subject and made one of four
requests
of
subjects: (a) “Can you spare 17$ (a strange request for a low
amount)?,” (b) “Can you spare
376
(a strange request for a high amount)?,”
(c) “Can you spare
a
quarter (a typical request for a low amount)?,” and
(d) “Can you spare any change (a typical request for a high amount)?”
The confederates always worked in pairs, with one acting
as
panhandler and
the other as recorder. The recorder randomly selected approaching adult pedes-
trians for the panhandler to solicit by choosing every nth person (which varied
depending upon the foot traffic on that particuiar day). The selection was
verbally communicated to the panhandler while the target was still far enough
away to be unable to hear. The recorder and panhandler were situated such that
they appeared unassociated. They were positioned
6
ft
apart and the recorder
appeared to be reading a book and wore portable stereo earphones. The pan-
handler was further instructed to direct her gaze away from the recorder. The
noise level at the wharf was such that normal conversation was not detectable
beyond 10
ft;
thus the panhandler and recorder could effectively communicate
without the target’s knowledge as long as the target was far enough away. The
second confederate recorded the target’s sex, whether the target complied,
whether the target inquired about the need for the money, and how much money
the target donated.
4A11 proceeds
from
the data collection were donated to the Santa
CNZ
AIDS Project. In
compliance with state and local ordinances prohibiting panhandling, all panhandlers carried
badges indicating that they were collecting
for
the
AIDS
project; however, these badges were
not visible to the target.
