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Better think before agreeing twice

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  • Pandelaere, Mario
  • Briers, Barbara
  • Dewitte, Siegfried
  • Warlop, Luk

Abstract

The present paper shows that the frequency of people's compliance with a request can be substantially increased if the requester first gets them to agree with a series of statements unrelated to the request but selected to induce agreement. We label this effect the ‘mere-agreement effect’ and present a two-step similarity-based mechanism to explain it. Across five studies, we show that induced mere agreement subtly causes respondents to view the presenter of the statements as similar to themselves, which in turn increases the frequency compliance with a request from that same person. We support the similarity explanation by showing that the effect of agreement on compliance is suppressed when agreement is induced to indicate dissimilarity with the interviewer, when the request is made by some other person, and when the artificially high level of agreement is made salient. We also validate the practical relevance of the mere-agreement persuasion technique in a field study. We discuss how the mere-agreement effect can be broadly used as a tool to increase cooperation and be readily implemented in marketing interactions.

Suggested Citation

  • Pandelaere, Mario & Briers, Barbara & Dewitte, Siegfried & Warlop, Luk, 2010. "Better think before agreeing twice," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 133-141.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ijrema:v:27:y:2010:i:2:p:133-141
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijresmar.2010.01.003
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Bob M. Fennis & Loes Janssen & Kathleen D. Vohs, 2009. "Acts of Benevolence: A Limited-Resource Account of Compliance with Charitable Requests," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 35(6), pages 906-924, April.
    2. Cornelissen, Gert & Pandelaere, Mario & Warlop, Luk & Dewitte, Siegfried, 2008. "Positive cueing: Promoting sustainable consumer behavior by cueing common environmental behaviors as environmental," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 46-55.
    3. Ruffle, Bradley J., 1998. "More Is Better, But Fair Is Fair: Tipping in Dictator and Ultimatum Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 247-265, May.
    4. Gopinath, Mahesh & Nyer, Prashanth U., 2009. "The effect of public commitment on resistance to persuasion: The influence of attitude certainty, issue importance, susceptibility to normative influence, preference for consistency and source proximi," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 60-68.
    5. Robin J. Tanner & Rosellina Ferraro & Tanya L. Chartrand & James R. Bettman & Rick Van Baaren, 2008. "Of Chameleons and Consumption: The Impact of Mimicry on Choice and Preferences," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 34(6), pages 754-766, August.
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