1 Week and We Just Don’t Care
When somebody
does something for us, we suddenly develop a feeling of tension, and feel obliged
to try and repay the person, regardless of whether or not we actually wanted whatever
they did for us. This is known as reciprocity (Pratkanis, 2007).
Kunz &
Woolcott (1976) demonstrated the norm of reciprocity by sending out Christmas
cards to complete strangers, and actually receiving many replies, some
featuring little handwritten notes and even family photographs. We know
reciprocity exists, but does this sense of obligation remain forever, or is
there a cutoff point after the passing of a certain amount of time? Burger,
Horita, Kinoshita, Roberts & Vera (1997) investigated the effect that the
passage of time has on the rule of reciprocity.
In their first
experiment, a confederate unexpectedly bought the participant a can of Coca
Cola. In the immediate condition, the confederate then produced an envelope and
explained that they needed to get it to a certain office within the next 20
minutes. The office was a 5 minute walk away in an out-of-the-way part of
campus. The confederate asked the participant if they’d mind taking the
envelope to the office as they had somewhere else they needed to be. In the
delayed condition, the participant signed up to another experimental session 1
week later. At this session 1 week later they met the confederate again, who
then proceeded to try and get the participant to deliver the envelope for them
just as they did for participants in the immediate condition. In the control
condition the confederate didn’t give the participant a can of Coca Cola, so
the rule of reciprocity was never engaged.
It was found
that those in the immediate condition were significantly more likely to comply
with the confederate’s request and deliver the envelope. Participants in the
delayed condition were not significantly more likely to comply than those in
the control condition. Table 1 shows the number of participants who agreed or
refused the request, and the percentage who agreed to the request for all 3
conditions. So, the gift of a free drink made participants comply with a later
request, however this obligation faded over 1 week.
Table 1: number
and percentage of participants who agreed or refused the confederate’s request
for immediate, delayed, and control conditions.
Did the
participants actually just forget that the confederate had bought them a drink
1 week earlier? The researchers went further with a second experiment, hoping
to weaken this argument. In experiment 2, participants read about 3 scenarios
that involved them being helped by other people, and then these people
requesting help in return. The scenarios were written with 1 week, 2 months, or
1 year passing between the initial favour and the request for help. Participants
had to use their imagination to judge whether or not they’d help this person
with the given timeframe. It was found that the longer the delay between the
initial favour and the request, the less compliance there was.
Both results
support the argument that the compliance tactic of reciprocity fades over time.
However this doesn’t apply to all cases. There are some circumstances where it
must extend for a long time, for example, I would imagine that having somebody
save your life would possibly result in a longer standing feeling of
reciprocity. Regardless of this, it seems that the reciprocity induced by a
small initial favour is fairly short lived.
Burger, J. M., Horita, M., Kinoshita, L., Roberts, K., & Vera, C.
(1997). Effects on time on the norm of reciprocity. Basic and Applied
Social Psychology, 19, 91-100.
Kunz, P. R., &
Woolcott, M. (1976). Season's greetings: From my status to yours. Social Science Research, 5, 269-278.
Pratkanis, A.
R. (2007). Social influence analysis: An index of tactics. The science of social influence:
Advances and future progress, 17-82.
Felicity Ang
Very interesting, thanks for this.
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