Page 122 - The Social Animal

104 The Social Animal

glided into it without prologue. The forewarning seems to say,
“Watch out, I’m going to try to persuade you,” and people tend to
respond by marshaling defenses against the message. This phenom-
enon was demonstrated in an experiment by Jonathan Freedman
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and David Sears, among others. Teenagers in the Freedman exper-
iment were told they would be hearing a talk entitled “Why
Teenagers Should Not Be Allowed to Drive.” Ten minutes later, the
speaker presented them with a prepared communication. In a con-
trol condition, the same talk was given without the 10-minute fore-
warning. The participants in the control condition were more
thoroughly convinced by the communication than were those who
had been forewarned.
People tend to protect their sense of freedom. According to Jack
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Brehm’s theory of reactance, when our sense of freedom is threat-
ened, we attempt to restore it. For example, I like to receive birthday
presents. But if a borderline student (in danger of flunking my
course) presented me with an expensive birthday present just as I was
about to read term papers, I would feel uncomfortable. My sense of
freedom or autonomy would be challenged. Similarly, persuasive
communications, if blatant or coercive, can be perceived as intruding
upon one’s freedom of choice, activating one’s defenses to resist the
messages. For example, if an aggressive salesperson tells me I must
buy something, my first reaction is to reassert my independence by
leaving the store.
In an experiment by Lillian Bensley and Rui Wu, college stu-
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dents watched one of two messages opposed to the drinking of alco-
holic beverages. One was a heavy-handed, dogmatic message stating
that there was no safe amount of alcohol and that all people should
abstain all the time. The second message was a milder one that
stressed the importance of controlling one’s drinking. The second
message was far more effective in getting people to reduce their con-
sumption of alcohol. This was especially true for heavy drinkers—
who almost certainly experienced the most reactance when
confronted with the heavy-handed message.
Reactance can operate in a number of interesting ways. Suppose
that, as I walk down the street, I am gently asked to sign a petition.
I don’t know much about the issue, and as it is being explained to me,
another person accosts us and begins to pressure me not to sign. Re-
actance theory predicts that, to counteract this pressure and reassert