ABSTRACT
Social psychologists have identified several ways to quickly create feelings of attraction between strangers. For example, learning that graduate students and another person share similar opinions, values or personality characteristics is often sufficient to create measurable increases in liking for this other individual. Two procedures known to increase fleeting attraction – a short conversation and mere exposure – led to an increase in compliance. Apparently these short-lived feelings of attraction were sufficient to trigger the liking heuristic, which then led the participant to respond to the stranger’s request as if responding to a friend. If feelings of attraction are responsible for the effect, then increased compliance should be found only when the confederate with whom the participant is familiar makes the request. Subsequent statistical analyses demonstrated that the feelings of attraction were at least partly responsible for the increase in compliance.
