It is almost absolute that friends are easily to persuade than strangers. The history of friendship and bond is simply enough for our friends to accede to our requests. But have you ever wondered, how much does someone have to like us before we can start to influence them?
New research has revealed that the “mere similarity” effect breathes compliance into a simple request. Such effect, often defined as people’s inclination to like others more because of common traits with themselves often result in an increased likelihood of people acceding to the request made by the other person.
These similarities can be a friend in common or something as insignificant as their names starting with the same letter. It has been found that people who thought that they were unalike only complied with the request 43% of the time. Yet, when they feel that the other party is similar to them, compliance shot up to a magnificent 77%. This underscores the fact that when asked for a minor favour, we tend to make a quick judgement on how much we like the person based on minor information and this can have a huge impact on our response.
Category(s):Mental Health in Asia
Source material from Psyblog
