“Mind full or mindful” – can mere cognitive busyness lead to compliance similar to an emotional seesaw?

ABSTRACT

The emotional seesaw phenomenon (ESP) is a social-influence technique in which a person experiences a certain emotion, where the external stimulus that evoked the emotion suddenly disappears. Large effects on compliance and impaired cognitive functioning were reported after ESPs. The present research (total N = 163) tests a generalization of this phenomenon: whether mere cognitive busyness leads to similar effects by provoking an inner focus. Two experiments closely modeled after previous ESP experiments supported this reasoning: a simple expectancy violation (Experiment 1) and cognitive load (Experiment 2) caused a comparable pattern of results as the ESP. Experiment 3 demonstrated that also the ESP fostered an inner focus and consequently compliant behavior. We discuss mechanisms underlying social-influence techniques.

KEYWORDS:

• Mindlessness
• social influence
• cognitive load
• emotional seesaw phenomenon
• expectancy violation

Imagine you cannot find a parking space in the city center, so you decide to park somewhere illegally. Rushing back to the car, you notice a piece of paper behind the wiper of your car: a parking ticket. When you pick it up, it turns out to be an advertisement. Most probably your mood will change from negative to positive and you will feel relief. If now a person approached you with a request to answer a 15-minute questionnaire: would you comply? Dolinski and Nawrat (1998) demonstrated you probably would. Parking violators with flyers resembling parking tickets experiencing ‘fear-then-relief’ more often consented than participants in the control groups. Whenever a sudden change in the emotional dynamic occurs – negative to positive or vice versa – an increase in compliant behavior is observed (Dolinski & Nawrat, 1998). Dolinski (2001) defines this emotional seesaw phenomenon (ESP) as a situation in which a person experiences a certain emotion, where the external stimulus evoking the emotion suddenly disappears. Experiments yielded increases in compliance (e.g., Dolinski & Nawrat, 1998), but impaired cognitive functioning (Dolinski, Ciszek, Godlewski, & Zawadzki, 2002). The present article is based on the idea that the key feature of the ESP is cognitive load due to an expectancy violation: people devote attention to the expectancy violation instead of allocating cognitive resources to the outside world. Thus, we aim at locating the ESP in a broader theoretical context, contributing to clarification and innovation in social-influence research (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).

Social-influence techniques

Social-influence techniques are successful in increasing compliant behavior (see meta-analyses by Burger, 1999; Pascual & Guéguen, 2005). Many well-known techniques follow a common sequential script (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004). It has been proffered that one factor increasing compliance is the establishment of a personal relationship between requester and requestee (Cialdini, 1993) during the sequential stages (Dolinski, Nawrat, & Rudak, 2001). The ESP is different: the ESP-evoking stimuli are not connected to the persuading source; thus no personal relationship is established.

A second compliance-increasing factor shared by many social-influence techniques (e.g., door-in-the-face, disrupt-then-reframe) is a state of mindlessness as opposed to mindfulness (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Dolinski, 2001; Pollock, Smith, Knowles, & Bruce, 1998). Langer, Blank, and Chanowitz (1978) defined mindfulness as a state of alertness expressed in active information processing. Mindlessness, in contrast, was defined as minimal information processing, with rule-governed behavior. Mindless (automatic) processing requires little effort and operates fast and parallel in high workload situations, whereas mindful (controlled) processing is slow and serial and requires effort (Schneider & Fisk, 1982; Chaiken & Trope, 1999, review dual-process models).

In which mode an individual processes a persuasive message depends on the target’s personal characteristics, ability, and motivation (Perloff, 2008). A personal characteristic influencing message elaboration is dispositional mindfulness (Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, & Toney, 2006) which is related to, but distinct from the concept of need for cognition (Pirson, Langer, Bodner, & Zilcha-Mano, 2012). Additionally, the ability to fully engage in the elaboration of a persuasive attempt can be inhibited or enhanced by situational constraints that can limit someone’s cognitive capacity, impeding mindful processing. This kind of situational constraint was labeled cognitive busyness (Gilbert & Hixon, 1991) or cognitive load (Ford & Kruglanski, 1995; Spears & Haslam, 1997). High cognitive load, the amount of information processed simultaneously in working memory (Paas, Renkel, & Sweller, 2004), is known to preempt a shallower processing style. Mindless processing is often crucial for persuasion success. When people are not highly motivated or have low ability, decisions are based on easily available attributes of the message, its source, or the situation. These cues are evaluated via efficient processing strategies: heuristics.

The emotional seesaw phenomenon

The script for an ESP is as follows: first, an emotion is evoked (e.g., fear), and then replaced with an opposite emotion (e.g., relief). In essence, this sudden shift of emotions apparently induces mindlessness and in turn promotes compliance, both non-consequential (e.g., moving the telephone to the other ear, Nawrat & Dolinski, 2007) and consequential (e.g., money donation, Dolinski & Nawrat, 1998). Evidence suggests that mindlessness may underlie compliance in the ESP. For example, compliance was decreased when a mindfulness-inducing factor was introduced between ESP and plea (Dolinski et al., 2002; Dolinski & Nawrat, 1998; Kaczmarek & Steffens, 2017). Further, Dolinski and colleagues were able to reject several interpretations as underlying mechanisms of the ESP: it is not based on specific emotions (Dolinski, 2001) nor the excitation-transfer effect (Dolinski & Nawrat, 1998). Alternatively, Dolinski focuses on the affective shift claiming that a sudden withdrawal of the sources of one’s emotion may encourage people to think about what has happened, resulting in a shortage of cognitive resources. On this basis, we propose a potential generalization of the ESP: that cognitive busyness in the absence of emotion induction may lead to similar compliance.

Expectancy violation

Mindlessness after the ESP could be based on its expectancy-violating structure: each ESP involves a situation that is believed to be true, which then abruptly proves inadequate. We argue that an inconsistency-resolution process is thus triggered. During inconsistency resolution, attention is directed toward the expectancy violation, away from extraneous stimuli (e.g., a request). According to expectancy-violation theory (Burgoon, 1978), expectancies let people know what to expect based upon interactions, norms, or information (Burgoon, Le Poire, & Rosenthal, 1995). A disconfirmation of expectancies suggests an inability to predict. How people feel about the expectancy violation depends on the contrast between expectancy and outcome, the subjective importance of the expectancy itself, and the valence of the violation (Burgoon, 1993). The bigger the contrast, the stronger the necessity for clarification. We assume that such an inconsistency-resolution process initiates cognitive appraisals (for similar reasoning, see Förster, Higgins, & Werth, 2004; Hutter & Crisp, 2005; Pendry & Macrae, 1999), limiting attentional capacity to process the outside world (comparable to a cognitive load). Unexpected information receives more cognitive processing than expected information (e.g., Bargh & Thein, 1985; Hastie, 1984) and depletes resources (Baddeley, 1996; Macrae, Bodenhausen, Schloerscheidt, & Milne, 1999).

The current research

The present research aims to delineate a key mechanism involved in the ESP. Our first innovative contribution is allocating the ESP in a broader theoretical context – thus supplementing the social-influence theory. Second, we empirically establish the link between cognitive load and compliance.

We assume that compliance after an ESP results from cognitive busyness provoked by an expectancy violation (see Dolinski, 2001). More precisely, we expect that expectancy violation provokes an inconsistency-resolution process preventing conscious attention to external stimuli. Thus, similar consequences as after the ESP should be observed after an expectancy violation without an affective shift (Experiment 1) or after a cognitive-load manipulation (Experiment 2). These consequences are increased compliance and inner focus, but impaired message processing and information recall. Then, we test whether also the ESP increases the inner focus (Experiment 3).

Throughout the present paper, analyses including demographics yielded no statistically significant interactions. Data are not presented. All experiments included informed consent and followed a no-deception policy. Termination of data collection was decided in advance. The logistic effort required determined the sample size (three experimenters, two experimental rooms, 25 min. per participant). The recommended minimum of 20 observations per cell was reached as proposed by Simmons, Nelson, and Simonsohn (2011). We report all experiments, conditions, and variables in the text or supplement. Data are available upon request.

Experiment 1

The aim of Experiment 1 was to examine whether a simple expectancy violation would lead to similar findings as an ESP. We hypothesized that the inner focus induced by an expectancy violation mediates its influence on compliance. Inner focus was manipulated using an expectancy-violating versus an expectancy-conforming newspaper article. This manipulation does not require people to stay in a mindless mode, but allows switching between processing modes, depending on personal dispositions and environmental cues. That is, because people can choose to focus on the text, they may react mindfully or mindlessly. We therefore predicted dispositional mindfulness to influence susceptibility to requests: people high in dispositional mindfulness are particularly skilled in switching the focus of attention given situational demands (Langer, 1989).

To test whether an expectancy violation leads to an inner focus and as a consequence increases compliance, the following procedure was used (modeled after Kaczmarek & Steffens, 2017). In Experimental Room 1 (ER1) before the manipulation, dispositional mindfulness was measured; on the way to Experimental Room 2 (ER2), message processing and compliance to a petitionist were assessed; in ER2, questionnaires on inner focus, information recall, and a manipulation check were administered.

We predicted impaired message processing (H1), higher compliance (H2), and deteriorated information recall (H3) in the expectancy-violating as compared to the control condition. Self-reported inner focus was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between experimental condition and compliance (H4). Additionally, expectancy violation should lead to compliance for participants low as opposed to high in dispositional mindfulness (H5). Finally, not central to our purposes, mindful individuals should display better message processing (H6) and information recall (H7) than those low in mindfulness.

Method

Participants and design

Participants were 62 students of a German university compensated with €3. Two participants had been overlooked by the petitionist (final N = 60; 32 female, 28 male, M_age = 23.43, SD_age = 3.91). The experiment had a single-factor between-subjects design (experimental group: n = 31, vs. control group, n = 29).

On the basis of large effects observed by Kaczmarek and Steffens (2017), a sample of N = 52 would suffice for the χ² tests below (H1-3), α = β = .05. For the mediation analysis (H4, replicated in Experiments 2–3) the statistical power was lower. An interaction effect pertaining to dispositional mindfulness (H5) could be detected with a statistical power of .84 (multiple regression analysis, 3 predictors, f² = .15; Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007).

Materials and procedure

Mindfulness scale. Participants were first asked to respond to the 17-item Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) (Brown & Ryan, 2003). The German translation by Kobarg (2007) was used, with adequate reliability and good validity and a 5-point scale (1–almost always, 5–hardly ever). Higher sum scores indicated higher mindfulness (α = .81; M_sum: 54.84, SD = 9.62).

Expectancy-violation induction

Then, participants were randomly assigned to read either an expectancy-violating or expectancy-conform text. In the expectancy-violating text, the astonishing case of an 82-year-old yogi who claims not to have eaten nor drunk for 70 years is discussed. The text was a printout of a respectable German news magazine (www.spiegel.de), written in a critical manner, nevertheless acknowledging that the yogi was in hospital for an around-the-clock observation for two weeks, where no evidence against his claims was found. The control article from a pharmacy newsletter stated the benefits of healthy eating habits. Participants were instructed to read the article carefully.

On their way to ER2, a petitionist approached participants, introducing herself as a student and asking them to sign the petition that every student should have the right to choose which public transportation to use to go to university. Participants’ reactions constituted DV1, Message Processing, and DV2, Compliance. Petitionists were extensively trained to appear friendly and polite and were blind to the experimental condition. Their attire and age were student-typical.

Message processing

As mindless participants should be less likely to ask questions, the petitionist noted explicit questions and comments as indicators of conscious message elaboration. Petitionists classified message elaboration as present when participants indicated basic understanding (e.g., ‘We are already allowed to choose!’).

Compliance

Signing the petition was treated as compliance.

In ER2 participants were asked to complete questionnaires to measure inner focus, information recall (DV3), check the manipulation, collect demographics (age, gender, education), and control questions (‘What was the purpose of the petition?’; ‘Did you notice that the petition was part of the study?’; ‘What did you think this study was about?’).

Self-reported inner focus

Inner focus was operationalized by averaging the z-transformed scores of two self-report items (r = .89) asking participants to which extent they allocated their attention to the inside (in percent) and to which extent they focused on the outside surrounding while walking from ER1 to ER2 (recoded; 5-point scale, 1 = not at all; 5 = very much).

Information recall

A 9-item multiple-choice questionnaire tested whether experimental participants remember less information about the petitionist/petition than controls (e.g., Was the person who approached you: (a) male, (b) female, (c) ‘I don’t know’). Accounting for guessing, an information recall index was calculated (Pr, Snodgrass & Corwin, 1988), subtracting the number of wrong responses from the number of correct ones.

Manipulation check

Participants rated the texts regarding interest, novelty, surprise, thought, and emotion induction (5-point scale, 1 = not at all; 5 = very much). They were asked how much of their inner focus was devoted to the article (0-100%). Finally, participants received their reimbursement, were thanked, and debriefed.

Results

Throughout the present paper, significance tests were conducted with α ≤ .05. Although all our hypotheses are directional, we generally report two-tailed statistical tests but mention if the one-tailed probability is significant (see Meiser, 2011, for discussion).

The manipulation check revealed that indeed, participants rated the expectancy-violating text as more thought provoking, novel, and surprising than the expectancy-conform text, but not significantly more interesting or emotional (details: Online Appendix). More of participants’ inner focus was devoted to the expectancy-violating (M = 43.39; SD = 26.24) than to the common-knowledge text (M = 28.13; SD = 23.61; p < .01).

The pattern of substantial findings supported the key role of expectancy violation (Table 1). We found impaired message processing, χ² (1, n = 60) = 5.35, p < .05, phi = −.30, higher compliance to sign the petition, χ² (1, n = 60) = 5.48, p < .05, phi = .30, and deteriorated information recall, F(1, 58) = 5.01, p < .05, ɳ_p² = .08, in the experimental as compared to control group.

Table 1. Percentages of participants who vocalized doubts and signed the petition (%), and the mean index of correctly recalled pieces of information separately for the experimental and the control groups in experiments 1–2.

	Message Processing		Compliance		Information Recall
					EG		CG
Experiment	EG %	CG %	EG %	CG %	M	SD	M	SD
1	32	62	77	48	4.29	2.41	5.62	2.18
2	47	57	73	50	4.83	1.53	6.40	2.21

Note: EG = Experimental Group; Higher values indicate higher propensity to comment on the petition (Message Processing), sign the petition (Compliance), and to remember information concerning the petition(ist) (Information Recall: Pr score – mean of correctly recalled pieces of information minus false alarms).

Testing the indirect effect of condition on compliance mediated by inner focus, we used bootstrapping (Bollen & Stine, 1990) applying PROCESS (Hayes, 2013) and 10,000 bootstrap re-samples. Data were in line with the theoretical expectation that there was a significant mediation by self-reported inner focus on compliance, 95% CI (bias-corrected and accelerated; see Efron, 1988) [.22, 1.78]; B = .71, Boot SE = 1.79. Self-reported inner focus was higher in the experimental than the control group, and the higher the level of inner focus, the higher the compliance (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Experiments 1–3: Logistic regression plots depicting the indirect effect of experimental group via self-reported inner focus on compliance separately for the experimental and the control group, with corresponding mean and distribution of the mediator at the bottom.

Testing the moderating role of dispositional mindfulness for the influence of experimental condition on message processing, compliance, and information recall, multiple regressions were used. We predicted that high levels of mindfulness result in more signs of message processing, fewer signatures on the petition, and better information recall. The z-transformed predictors experimental condition and dispositional mindfulness and their interaction were entered into a simultaneous regression model (Aiken & West, 1991). Analyses revealed a significant moderation effect only on information recall. Experimental condition affected information recall (B = −.64, SE_b = .29, β = −.27, p < .05, see ANOVA above). No substantial association was found between dispositional mindfulness and information recall (B = .23, SE_b = .29, β = .10, p = .44). More importantly, there was an interaction between experimental condition and dispositional mindfulness (B = .71, SE_b = .29, β = .29, p = .05, Figure 2). Simple slopes for the effect of condition on information recall were tested on three levels of dispositional mindfulness. The simple slope for the influence of experimental condition on information recall 1 SD below the mean of MAAS (B = −1.35, SE_b = .42, β = −.57, p = .01) was significant and negative. The simple slope for 1 SD above the mean of dispositional mindfulness was not significant (B = .07, SE_b = .29, β = .03, p = .86): information recall of participants high in dispositional mindfulness was independent of experimental condition. The ability to recall information in participants with low to medium levels of dispositional mindfulness however was significantly impaired by the expectancy violation.

Figure 2. Experiment 1: Regression lines of the relation between cognitive busyness (high vs. low) and information recall at high, medium, and low (+1SD, mean, −1SD) sum scores of the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS).

Discussion

Reading an expectancy-violating text leads to increased compliance and decreased message processing and information recall, suggesting that compliance can be increased by increasing the level of participants’ inner focus through an expectancy violation deprived of an affective shift. These findings support our theoretical assumption that the key role in the ESP is the inconsistency-resolution process. The consequence of this inner focus is an automatic response to a familiar input configuration – here, compliance to a petitionist’s request. The second consequence of shallower information processing is impaired information recall.

Consistent with our hypothesis, mindfulness moderated this relationship. The higher an individual’s level of mindfulness, the weaker the relationship between cognitive busyness and information recall. It appears that participants with higher levels of dispositional mindfulness had better memory for surrounding information in spite of the experimental manipulation. Dispositional mindfulness however did not prevent them from mindless behavior (as the other moderation effects were n.s.).

Comparable to cognitive load, the expectancy-violating article seemed to diminish the amount of mental capacity left for solving other tasks. If our reasoning were true, then there should be a direct effect of cognitive load on compliance.

Experiment 2

The aim of Experiment 2 was to extend our findings by forcing participants into a mindless mode. Therefore, we used a classical cognitive-load manipulation. Participants were asked to remember either a number with many or few digits (e.g., Maehara & Saito, 2013). Thus, given that they had to remember their number, participants in the high-load condition had to stay in an inner-focused state, inhibiting mindful processing of surrounding information. Our predictions were thus identical to Experiment 1 with one exception. We did not assume that dispositional mindfulness is a moderator.

Method

Participants and design

A total of 60 undergraduates (31 female, 29 male, M_age = 22.25, SD_age = 2.46) were randomly assigned to one of the two groups (high vs. low load), receiving €3 for participation in a single-factor (high vs. low load; each n = 30) between-subjects experiment.

Procedure

Similar to Experiment 1, after entering ER1 participants filled in the dispositional-mindfulness inventory. Afterward (instead of reading an article) they were told to remember their personal identification number (ID), allegedly crucial for final payout, consisting either of five or two digits. Apart from the information-recall questions the questionnaire in ER2 began with three questions (manipulation check) asking participants to state their personal ID, asking the extent to which this number was difficult to remember, and how preoccupied they were about forgetting the number while walking (5-point scale, 1 = not at all; 5 = very much). Furthermore, we again asked participants to which extent they allocated their attention to the inside/outside surrounding during transition (r = .36).

Results

The manipulation check revealed that all participants remembered their personal ID, with participants in the experimental than control group reporting more difficulty (M = 2.67; SD = 1.21, vs. M = 1.27; SD = .69; p < .001) and being more preoccupied with forgetting it (M = 3.47; SD = 1.17, vs. M = 1.93, SD = 1.14; p < .001).

As expected (Table 1), participants in the high-load condition (descriptively) exhibited fewer signs of message processing, χ² (1, n = 60) = .60, p = .44, phi = −.10, a higher propensity to act compliantly that was significant only in a one-tailed test, χ² (1, n = 60) = 3.45, p = .06, phi = .24, and inhibited information recall as compared to the low-load condition, F(1, 58) = 10.19, p < .01, ɳ²_p = .15. Following the procedures of Experiment 1, data again supported our mediation assumption that the influence of cognitive load on compliance, B = .66, Boot SE = .39, CI: .17–1.73, was mediated by self-reported inner focus (Figure 1). Inner focus was higher in the high-load than the low-load group, and this, in turn, led to a higher probability of compliance.

Also, data supported the theoretical assumption that the influence of cognitive load on information recall was mediated by inner focus. There was an indirect effect of cognitive load on information recall via the potential mediating variable (B = −.55; Boot SE = .26, CI: −1.22; −.14), in line with the hypothesis that the more inner focus participants reported, the less information about the petition/petitionist they recalled. In line with expectations, the relation of condition and information recall was not moderated by dispositional mindfulness (interaction: B = .10, SE_b = .27, β = .05, p = .70).

Discussion

Consistent with expectations, we observed impairments of message processing (descriptively) and information recall and increased compliance. One essential difference between Experiments 1 and 2 was observed: there was no moderation by dispositional mindfulness in the latter, in line with our assumption that a cognitive-load induction fosters heuristic processing independently of participants’ level of dispositional mindfulness. Furthermore, this study again yielded evidence for the hypothesis that self-reported inner focus mediates compliance (along with information recall). In sum, findings are consistent with the explanation that similar consequences as after the ESP are observed if participants low in dispositional mindfulness choose an inner-focused state (Exp. 1) and if participants are forced into an inner-focused state, be they low in mindfulness or not (Exp. 2). Converging evidence for our reasoning would be data showing that an ESP also provokes an inner focus.

Experiment 3

Experiment 3 used unpublished data from Experiment 2 by Kaczmarek and Steffens (2017). To test whether the ESP leads to an inner focus (H1) and as a consequence increases compliance (H2), participants’ inner focus was assessed after the ESP.

Method

As reported by Kaczmarek and Steffens (2017), there were 21 participants in the experimental condition (emotional seesaw) and 19 in the control condition (one emotion; M_age = 22.33, SD_age = 2.40, 21 female, 19 male). Briefly, in ER1, participants were asked to answer a computer-based common-knowledge quiz. The final screen informed them about the expectancy-violating (€0.50 for every incorrect answer) versus expectancy-congruent payout scheme (€0.50 for every correct answer); then they immediately departed to ER2. Again, on their way they were approached by a petitionist (male) and asked to sign the nonsense petition. Message processing, compliance, inner focus, and information recall were assessed as in Experiment 1, before compensating participants.

Results and discussion

As reported in Kaczmarek and Steffens (2017), participants in the emotional seesaw condition asked fewer questions regarding the petition and more often signed it than those in the control group, and they recalled fewer details concerning the petitionist. H1 was confirmed (see Figure 1) that inner focus was higher in the ESP than the control condition, F(1,38) = 13.92; p ≤ .001; ɳ_p² = .27. Findings were in line with the theoretical assumption (H2) that the relationship between experimental condition and compliance was mediated by inner focus. The indirect effect of experimental condition on compliance via inner focus was estimated at B= 1.63, Boot SE= 2.16, 95% CI: .31, 8.24. The ESP resulted in more self-reported inner focus, and inner focus led to higher compliance. Thus, we found evidence for the hypothesis that the ESP increased compliance by inner focus.

General discussion

Previous research on the ESP indicated that the experienced affective shift impaired cognitive functioning and left individuals vulnerable to requests (Dolinski et al., 2002; Dolinski & Nawrat, 1998; Kaczmarek & Steffens, 2017). We examined the hypotheses that (a) an expectancy violation in the absence of an affective shift is sufficient to promote this vulnerability; (b) the expectancy violation shifts attention from external to internal, thereby consuming cognitive resources (cognitive load) and fostering mindless responses; and (c) that a simple cognitive load can induce the same pattern of results. Experiment 1 showed that an expectancy violation, deprived of an affective shift, can increase participants’ inner focus and thus cause the pattern of results observed after an ESP, namely higher compliance and impaired message processing and information recall. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the mediator directly by a cognitive-load manipulation and corroborated that inner focus, the hypothesized consequence of the ESP, fosters similar compliance as observed after an ESP. Experiments 1–2 indicate that similar consequences as after the ESP were observed for participants low in dispositional mindfulness who reverted to an inner-focused state (Exp. 1), and for participants who were forced into an inner-focused state (Exp. 2), regardless of dispositional mindfulness. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the ESP also fostered an inner focus resulting in higher compliance.

The present findings are compatible with the idea that the most important feature of the ESP is its expectancy-violating structure. Under conditions of high motivation (relevant expectancy) and sufficient processing resources, the discrepancy between expectancy and reality may either (a) bias cognitive processing toward an expectancy-consistent interpretation, leading to expectancy sustention (e.g., Förster et al., 2004; Hutter & Crisp, 2005) or (b) lead to an expectancy upgrade (e.g., Pendry & Macrae, 1999; Sanna & Turley, 1996). Both strategies use limited working-memory capacity, leading to shallower processing of irrelevant information, in line with Dolinski’s (2001) hypothesis that the ESP encourages people to think about what has just happened.

Affect intensity appears relevant to post-ESP responses. As Afifi and Metts (1998) showed, affect intensity after an expectancy violation depends on violation expectedness, the extent to which the violation outcome varies from the expectancy, and violation importance, the impact that this violation has on the individual. The bigger the gap between expectancy and reality, and the more subjectively important the expectancy, the stronger the emotional response. It follows that the role of affect in the ESP is the extent to which the situation receives a cognitive appraisal.

Limitations of the present studies are that, due to the sensitivity of the ESP effect (Dolinski et al., 2002), the mediator (inner focus) was assessed after the dependent variable (compliance), and that the mediation findings are based solely on self-reports and correlations: ‘the sole basis for causal inference in cross-sectional designs is assumption’ (Kline, 2015, p. 204; for additional critical discussion of mediation, see e.g., Fiedler, Schott, & Meiser, 2011). However, participants were not aware of the fact that the petition had been part of the experiment when asked to report on their inner focus. Also, the finding that more of the inner focus of experimental than control participants was devoted to the text (not to the petition, Exp. 1) supports our idea that inner focus influenced compliance, not vice versa. Further, many participants indicated they understood the meaning of the petition only during the respective control question at the end of the experiment. Most importantly, Experiment 2 quite directly manipulated the mediator by inducing cognitive load, and replicated the effect on compliance (one-tailed).

Because we created a compliance-promoting context, more compliant responses were probably observed as compared to naturalistic settings. As an illustration, if the petitionist wore a suit instead of student-typical attire, compliance rates were substantially lower (Kaczmarek, 2014).

A first theoretical contribution of the present research is investigating the processes underlying an SIT that is unique in structure. We thus provide an experimental link between heuristic processing and compliant behavior, an association rarely addressed experimentally (Janssen, Fennis, Pruyn, & Vohs, 2008). We believe that the common factor in SITs in general is that compliance is increased when people rely on compliance-promoting cues rather than deliberate on the merits of the request. The working mechanism of these techniques however is diverse. If mental alertness is reduced, assimilation principles such as reciprocal concessions (Door-In-The-Face-Technique), commitment (Foot-In-The-Door-Technique), social validation, liking, scarcity, and authority guide behavior and serve as mental shortcuts during decision-making (Cialdini, 1993). In many techniques, the quality of the initial interaction is a central ingredient. Because requester and requestee meet for the first time during the target request in the ESP, explanations based on compliance-facilitating heuristic principles [alpha strategies (α)] such as conversational engagement (Dolinski et al., 2001; Howard, 1990), augmentation of similarity and liking (Gopinath & Nyer, 2009), or the internal needs for consistency and reciprocity (Cialdini, 1993) cannot bolster compliance. Omega strategies (ω), known to diminish persuasion resistance (Knowles & Linn, 2004) however are under-researched. We argue that cognitive load induced via expectancy violation is a paragon omega strategy, and, therefore, a resistance-reducing factor. Davis and Knowles (1999) argued that many persuasive attempts evoke an approach-avoidance tendency, meaning that individuals’ natural tendency to comply is restricted by the required expense, effort, or commitment. The working mechanism of cognitive load in this setting is comparable to an already identified omega factor, distraction. Petty, Wells, and Brock (1976) argued that distraction interferes with any thought that the recipients had about a message, including criticisms and counterarguments. In this realm cognitive load, including the ESP, is primarily an omega strategy – a strategy that disrupts or inhibits resistance toward compliance, and, as such, is comparable with other strategies including the Disrupt-Then-Reframe technique (Davis & Knowles, 1999). This technique first disrupts resistance by using an atypical sale or request scheme, and later fosters compliance through providing additional reasons for compliance. Dolinski and Szczucka (2013) further elaborated on similarities between the ESP and the Disrupt-Then-Reframe Technique, showing that a verbal argument (even senseless) accompanying the request also enhances ESP efficiency.

The compliance-inducing power of surprising experimental tasks has also been shown by Rind (1997). By engaging individuals in an apparently easy but deceptive and therefore surprising cognitive task, compliance to requests for help was increased, proffering that curiosity is a powerful compliance-inducing factor. Consistent with our theoretical approach, these surprising or expectancy-violating situations attract attention as a result of their atypical nature.

Finally, the present research shows the impact of cognitive load on persuasion susceptibility and compliant behavior. Only a few empirical studies have explored this often stated influence (e.g., Wogalter & Usher, 1999).

Conclusion

Inducing an inner focus indirectly or directly can function as a social-influence technique, comparably to the ESP. It appears that both induce attentional distortion through their expectancy-violating structure and consequently the need for information upgrade. This attentional distortion – a kind of cognitive load – fosters shallower processing increasing the probability of mindless compliance. Immediately following an expectancy violation, at least for human cognition, the world ceases to exist and only the violation appears worth of full attention. In these kinds of situations, it seems difficult to remain mindful because the mind is full. While this is not inherently harmful, problems could arise if marketing specialists and fundraisers exploited people’s busy minds.

Acknowlegment

We thank Joanna Sweklej and Natalie Trent for valuable comments on a previous version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by adoctroral grant from the Max-Planck-Society to Magdalena C. Kaczmarek