Birds of a Feather: The Effect of Negatively and Positively Valenced Similarities on Compliance

Previous research has shown that individuals have a tendency to prefer things and people related to themselves. I conducted a lab experiment to replicate previous findings in that individuals who believed they shared a similarity with someone would be more likely to comply with a request from that person, as well as show more feelings of liking towards that person. Additionally, the study sought to investigate if sharing a positively-valenced or negatively-valenced similarity with the requestor would affect the likelihood of individuals to comply with the request and the amount of liking felt towards the requestor. Although the manipulations of similarity and valence were found to be successful, no hypothesized differences in rates of compliance or liking were found. BIRDS OF A FEATHER 5 Birds of a Feather: The Effect of Negatively and Positively Valenced Similarities on Compliance As the old saying goes a feather flock togethe can be found in our daily personal lives; we tend to surround ourselves with others who share similar beliefs, interests, and personalities. We like people who are like us. In a study by Burger, Messian, Patel, del Prado, and Anderson (2004), participants who believed they shared an incidental similarity with another individual (e.g. a birthdate, fingerprint type, first name) reported higher levels of attraction (liking) for that person than participants who did not believe that they shared such a similarity with the individual. Individuals also agreed more with an aggressively-written persuasive essay and believed that the essay was not as coercive or threatening when the individuals were led to believe that they shared a birthdate and first name with the author of the essay, compared to individuals who did not believe they shared a birthdate or first name (Silvia, 2005). Those individuals who believed that they shared a similarity with the author also tended to believe more strongly that the author shared similar personal values with themselves, compared to individuals who did not believe they had a similarity with the author. Even sharing a similar object, such as a watch, led people to linger near a confederate longer on a street corner than people who did not believe they had the same watch (Guéguen, Martin, & Meineri, 2011). Similarities, even ones that are simply by coincidence, seem to increase the amount of liking we feel for others. This tendency for similarity to increase the degree of liking also appears when the similarities are more personal. In a study by Insko and Wilson (1977), participants who perceived sharing similar personalities with another individual tended to rate this individual higher on a likability scale, compared to those participants who perceived sharing dissimilar personalities with the other individual. The tendency was further supported by a study by Burger, BIRDS OF A FEATHER 6 Soroka, Gonzago, Murphy, and Somervell (2001), in which some of the participants believed that another individual had picked mostly the same adjectives to describe herself. These participants tended to rate the individual higher than participants who believed that the individual had picked different self-describing traits. Implicit egotism is the tendency to prefer things that are connected to the self, since most people have positive feelings about themselves (Pelham, Mirenberg, & Jones, 2002). Neither the magnitude nor the pertinence of the connection between these things and the self seem to matter when it comes to the strength of the preference. In one study on this phenomenon, individuals were shown to be significantly more attracted to people whose last names shared letters with their own, as well as people whose meaningless experimental code numbers were associated with their birthday numbers (Jones, Pelham, Carvallo, & Mirenberg, 2004). The tendency not only affects seemingly subjective and fickle attractions, but also major life decisions, such as city of residence, spouse, and career (Pelham et al., 2002; Simonsohn, 2011). When a seemingly non-logical and temporary sense of attraction occurs with a stranger who shares a unique similarity with us, it is known as a unit relationship (Heider, 1958). The unit relationship is formed when two individuals perceive an association between themselves due to a similarity that is unique to the pair with respect to their situation (two people from Hawaii would form a unit relationship if they stumbled upon one another at a bar in Bangladesh, but might not feel the same association if they met at a bar in Hawaii). This type of unit relationship formation and subsequent increase in liking were supported in a study by Insko and Wilson (1977). Participants who had the opportunity to discover personal similarities with each other by means of a brief chat thereby developing a unit relationship liked their discussion partner significantly more than another individual who had been in the same room, but had not BIRDS OF A FEATHER 7 participated in the discussion. People also tend to perceive thei undesirable aspects more favorably, even if they discover the similarity after learning of the undesirable aspects, as was illustrated in a study by Finch and Cialdini (1989). In their study, on somewhat ambiguous qualities when they believed that they shared a birthdate with the notorious historical figure than those who believed their dates of birth differed. The uncommonness of the similarity between two people influences the extent to which individuals are attracted to each other. In Arkin and Burger perceived a future exclusive interaction with another individual rated that partner as more likable than future partners who had been interacting with others already, without the participants even seeing or speaking to this imaginary partner. Just knowing that the imaginary partner was only going to interact with the participant, and no other individuals, seemed to make the interaction more unique to the participant, and therefore the exclusive partner was deemed more desirable than the shared partner. This trend was also supported in a later study by Burger et al. (2004), in which participants who shared a rare fingerprint type with a confederate reported feeling higher levels of attraction to the confederate, compared to participants who shared a common fingerprint type with a confederate. Not only does similarity lead to attraction, but it also leads to compliance with requests from the unit relationship partner. In a study by Guéguen et al. (2005), participants complied more often and more quickly to a request for completing an online survey sent via e-mail from a solicitor of the same surname than of a differing surname. Participants who believed that they had chosen many of the same adjectives to describe themselves as a confederate were also more likely to agree to write a page of feedback about an essay written by the confederate than BIRDS OF A FEATHER 8 participants who thought that the requesting confederate had chosen only a handful or very few of the same self-describing adjectives (Burger et al., 2001). Burger et al. (2004) found that participants were more likely to comply with the same request for written feedback about an essay when an incidental similarity was present than not, and they were even more likely to comply when that similarity was perceived as rare than as common. An exchange relationship is the type of relationship we have with business associates, clerks, and strangers, in which the goal of the relationship is clear (e.g. to purchase an item, to perform a service) and the recognition of personal needs is not expected (Clark, Oullette, Powell, & Milberg, 1987). Most people would become uncomfortable or perhaps even peeved if the employee at the drive-through counter began telling them all about his recent courtship failure. If the employee was a friend or acquaintance, however, listening to and commenting on his personal life would be an obligatory behavior in maintaining the relationship. This would then be what is called a communal relationship, a broad category of friendship in which the act of (Clark et al., 1987). Participants in a study by Williamson and Clark (1992) felt better after helping their partner if they were in a communal relationship than if they were in an exchange relationship. One of the reasons presented for the tendency to comply with requests from unit relationship partners is that individuals involved in the unit relationship perceive themselves as being involved in a communal relationship (Burger et al., 2001; Williamson & Clark, 1992). If this is assumed, then it would follow that individuals who share a similarity a situation which leads to developing a unit relationship should perceive their relationship as a communal relationship. This further supports and explains the tendency for increased compliance with requests from unit relationship partners. Along these lines, Burger and his colleagues (2001) suggest that being involved in a unit relationship may BIRDS OF A FEATHER 9 trigger the sort of heuristic processing in which we engage when dealing with a friend, as opposed to a stranger. If we hear the same request from a friend and from a stranger, we are more likely to automatically comply with the friend, with little thought, because our brains have labeled the individual as someone w (Burger et al., 2001). The current study seeks to further the research on similarity and compliance in a way that has not yet been explored. Past studies have used incidental and self-reported personality similarities to encourage fostering a unit relationship between participants and their partners, but no research has focused on the valence of the similarity. Valence, in the psychological sense, can Brainerd, and Stein, 2012, p. 663) which can range from very positive to very negative. What if the similarity the unit relationship pair shared was perceived as something negative? Finch and Rasputin study