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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
If You Need Help, Just Ask: Underestimating Compliance With Direct Requests For Help, Francis J. Flynn, Vanessa K. Bohns
If You Need Help, Just Ask: Underestimating Compliance With Direct Requests For Help, Francis J. Flynn, Vanessa K. Bohns
Vanessa K. Bohns
A series of studies tested whether people underestimate the likelihood that others will comply with their direct requests for help. In the first 3 studies, people underestimated by as much as 50% the likelihood that others would agree to a direct request for help, across a range of requests occurring in both experimental and natural field settings. Studies 4 and 5 demonstrated that experimentally manipulating a person’s perspective (as help seeker or potential helper) could elicit this underestimation effect. Finally, in Study 6, the authors explored the source of the bias, finding that help seekers were less willing than potential …
It Hurts When I Do This (Or You Do That): Posture And Pain Tolerance, Vanessa K. Bohns, Scott Wiltermuth
It Hurts When I Do This (Or You Do That): Posture And Pain Tolerance, Vanessa K. Bohns, Scott Wiltermuth
Vanessa K. Bohns
Recent research (Carney, Cuddy, & Yap, 2010) has shown that adopting a powerful pose changes people's hormonal levels and increases their propensity to take risks in the same ways that possessing actual power does. In the current research, we explore whether adopting physical postures associated with power, or simply interacting with others who adopt these postures, can similarly influence sensitivity to pain. We conducted two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants who adopted dominant poses displayed higher pain thresholds than those who adopted submissive or neutral poses. These findings were not explained by semantic priming. In Experiment 2, we manipulated power …