Compliance gaining young and old: Beliefs about influence in different age groups

The purpose of this study was to enhance our understanding of beliefs that the young hold about influence communication between the young the old. Thus, beliefs about intergenerational compliance gaining were explored in a role play situation adapted to a 2 X 2 X 2 factorial design: young respondents envisaged themselves either as a young person or as “typical 70‐year‐old,”; the imagined compliance target was 21 versus 70 years of age, and the request was either legitimate or illegitimate. Dependent measures were formed from likelihood‐of‐use estimates and from open‐ended descriptions of influence strategies. The results showed that greater pressure to comply was anticipated when sources were older than younger, and that both age groups were expected to be more direct when the target was a member of the outgroup rather than a peer. These and other findings are interpreted in terms of age stereotyping and intergenerational accommodative differences.

Notes

James Price Dillard is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts & the Center for Communication Research at the University of Wisconsin‐Madison. Karen Henwood is a Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Brunei. Howard Giles is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of California‐Santa Barbara. Nikolas Coupland is Director at the Center for Applied English Language Studies at the University of Wales, College of Cardiff. Justine Coupland is Research Associate at the Center for Applied English Language Studies at the University of Wales, College of Cardiff.