A comparison of methods for eliciting persuasive strategies: Strategy selection versus message construction

Two procedures for eliciting subjects’ interpersonal influence strategies were compared with a repeated measures design. The two procedures yielded different conclusions concerning both the number of and the particular influence strategies subjects were likely to employ. Specifically, subjects selected different influence strategies from Marwell and Schmitt's (1967) strategy checklist than they used when spontaneously constructing messages. Subjects also selected more strategies from the checklist than they used in constructing their messages. Subjects rarely employed, in constructing their messages, strategies explicitly rejected on the checklist. Given differences in the data produced by the two procedures, their relative merits are discussed.