Compliance can be influence to the degree that the victim is abstract
No surprise, compliance becomes easier when the victim is an abstraction—say, the future generations who will inherit this planet. In Milgram follow-ups (Stanley Milgram had shown that people would continue to shock someone who missed an answer to a question to deadly levels if ordered to by authority), compliance declined if the learner was in the same room as the teacher and would plummet if the two had shaken hands. Ditto if psychological distance was shortened by perspective taking—what would it feel like if you were in their shoes?
References
- Sapolsky, Robert. (2017). Behave Chapter 12. Hierarchy, Obedience, and Resistance (p. 538). New York, NY: Penguin Random House.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Psychology / Social Psychology Status:☀️