Some effects of source behavior on target's compliance to threats

摘要

A robot player sent intermittent threat messages of 10 percent, 50 percent, or 90 percent credibility to 180 subjects, 90 of each sex, during the course of a mixed motive conflict game. The magnitude of the threatened punishment was either low or high. The simulated player was either 0 percent, 50 percent, or 100 percent accommodative in his use of coercive power on the threat-related trials. The results indicated a strong effect of source accommodation on a behavioral measure of target compliance. Supplementary analyses of the compliance data according to an expected value model of social power indicated that males complied as a direct function of the difference between the expected values for compliance and noncompliance, while females did not. Furthermore, a threat credibility by sex interaction was found on the proportion of cooperative responses made by targets on nonthreat occasions. The combined compliance and cooperation results indicated that targets' responses to threats are highly dependent upon both the words and the deeds of the threatener.