Effects of influence strategies, perceived social power and cost on compliance with requests

The present study investigated the effects of influence strategies, social power of the influencing agent and cost to comply on compliance with requests. Undergraduate students were required to imagine that one of their friends and an upperclassman in their university's extra curricular activity club were influencing agents and that the agents had asked them to lend a notebook for a final exam and to lend some money. The experimental design was a 2 (the cost to comply with requests: high, low) × 2 (a set of requests: friend-notebook and upperclassman-money, friend-money and upperclassman-notebook) × 9 (influence strategies) factorial design. Respondents rated the extent to which they would comply with the requests under nine influence strategies. The main results were as follows:(a) The respondents were likely to comply when the strategy was reasoning, promise or hinting, while they were unlikely to comply when they were asked by the agent using threat or invoking a role relationship.(b) The respondents were inclined to lend a notebook when perceived social power was high and when cost was low. Only a ignificant main effect of scost was found in the case of money.(c) Influence strategies such as threat, debt and invoking a role relationship lowered women's compliance more than men's.