2004/01/01 by Jerry M. Burger, Nicole Messian, Shebani Patel +2 · 326 citations
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Psychology of Social Influence #Emotions and Moral Behavior #Stalking, Cyberstalking, and Harassment #Similarity (geometry) #Psychology #Social psychology #Compliance (psychology) #Affect (linguistics) #Communication #Computer science
paper · doi:10.1177/0146167203258838
published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30(1), 35-43 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2004/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/26
Four studies examined the effect of an incidental similarity on compliance to a request. Undergraduates who believed they shared a birthday (Study 1), a first name (Study 2), or fingerprint similarities (Study 3) with a requester were more likely to comply with a request than participants who did not perceive an incidental similarity with the requester. The findings are consistent with past research demonstrating that people often rely on heuristic processing when responding to requests and with Heider's description of unit relationships in which perceived similarities lead to positive affect. Consistent with the unit relation interpretation, participants did not increase compliance when hearing about an incidental similarity with someone other than the requester or when they believed the feature they shared with the requester was common.