Choice, Aversive Consequences, and the “Truth-Telling” Potential of the Situation as Integrating Concepts in Forced Compliance
Observer-Ss read descriptions of a number of prior forced-compliance experiments in which financial inducement was manipulated. Observer-Ss then rated these cover story-experimental manipulations along such dimensions as whether S's behavior was consistent with his own beliefs, the probability that S's act would deceive someone, the extent to which the observer-S would have experienced guilt as a result of his counter-attitudinal act, the extent to which the situation provided choice, the extent to which the situation tended to evoke truth, responsibility and sincerity, and whether or not the counter-attitudinal act was likely to produce any harm. Although the results are not completely consistent, there is some suggestion that the ratings for harm tracked the attitude-change data previously reported.