The group as an influencing agent in a forced compliance paradigm

Abstract The forced compliance paradigm was extrapolated to a group setting. Two theoretically relevant variables were manipulated: the attractiveness of the group, and whether the group induced the subject to comply with its wishes. In all cases the subject disagreed with the group on an important issue. The two hypotheses, derived from dissonance theory, were supported: (1) when the subject knew only that the group disagreed with him, then the more attractive the group, the more the subject was influenced by it; (2) when the subject was induced to comply with the group's wishes, then the more attractive the group the less the influence.