Skip to main content
Download PDF

When Artificial Social Agents Try to Persuade People: The Role of Social Agency on the Occurrence of Psychological Reactance

International Journal of Social Robotics volume 3, pages 155–165 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

In the near future, robotic agents might employ persuasion to influence people’s behavior or attitudes, just as human agents do in many situations. People can comply with these requests, but, people can also experience psychological reactance, which may lead to the complete opposite of the proposed behavior. In this study we are interested in the social nature of psychological reactance. Social agency theory proposes that more social cues lead to a more social interaction. We argue that this also holds for psychological reactance. Therefore, we expect a positive relationship between the level of social agency of the source of a persuasive message and the amount of psychological reactance the message arouses. In an online experiment, participants read an advice on how to conserve energy when using a washing machine. The advice was either provided as text-only, as text accompanied by a still picture of a robotic agent, or as text accompanied by a short film clip of the same robotic agent. Confirming our expectations, results indicated that participants experienced more psychological reactance when the advice was accompanied by the still picture or when the advice was accompanied by the short film clip as compared to when the advice was provided as text-only. This indicates that stronger social agency of the messenger can lead to more psychological reactance. Furthermore, our results confirmed earlier research about the effects of controlling language on psychological reactance. Implications are discussed.

References

  1. Baron RM, Kenny DA (1986) The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic and statistical considerations. J Pers Soc Psychol 51:1173–1182

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Blascovich J (2002) A theoretical model of social influence for increasing the utility of collaborative virtual environments. In: Proceedings of the 4th international conference on collaborative virtual environments, Bonn, Germany, 2000. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, pp 25–30

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  3. Brehm JW (1966) A theory of psychological reactance. Academic Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  4. Brehm SS, Brehm JW (1981) Psychological reactance: a theory of freedom and control. Academic Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  5. Brehm JW, Stires LK, Sensenig J, Shaban J (1966) The attractiveness of an eliminated choice alternative. J Exp Soc Psychol 2:301–313

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Buller DB, Borland R, Burgoon M (1998) Impact of behavioral intention on effectiveness of message features: evidence from the family sun safety project. Hum Commun Res 24(3):433–453

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Burgoon M, Alvaro E, Grandpre J, Voulodakis M (2002) Revisiting the theory of psychological reactance: Communicating threats to attitudinal freedom. In: Dillard J, Pfau M (eds) The persuasion handbook: theory and practice. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks

    Google Scholar 

  8. Dillard JP, Shen L (2005) On the nature of reactance and its role in persuasive health communication. Commun Monogr 72:144–168

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Grandpre J, Alvaro EM, Burgoon M, Miller CH, Hall JR (2003) Adolescent reactance and anti-smoking campaigns: a theoretical approach. Health Commun 15(3):349–366

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Guadagno RE, Blascovich J, Bailenson JN, McCall C (2007) Virtual humans and persuasion: the effect of agency and behavioral realism. Media Psychol 10:1–22

    Google Scholar 

  11. Hone K (2006) Empathic agents to reduce user frustration: the effects of varying agent characteristics. Interact Comput 18:227–245

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Langer EJ (1992) Matters of mind: mindfulness/mindlessness in perspective. Conscious Cogn 1:289–305

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Louwerse MM, Graesser AC, Lu S, Mitchell HH (2005) Social cues in animated conversational agents. Appl Cogn Psychol 19:693–704

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Liu S, Helfenstein S, Wahlstedt A (2008) Social psychology of persuasion applied to human-agent interaction. Hum Technol 4(2):123–143

    Google Scholar 

  15. Lusk MM, Atkinson RK (2007) Animated pedagogical agents: does their degree of embodiment impact learning from static animated worked examples? Appl Cogn Psychol 21:747–764

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Mayer RE, Sobko K, Mautone PD (2003) Social cues in multimedia learning: role of speaker’s voice. J Educ Psychol 95:419–425

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Miller CH, Lane LT, Deatrick LM, Young AM, Potts KA (2007) Psychological reactance and promotional health messages: the effects of controlling language, lexical concreteness, and the restoration of freedom. Hum Commun Res 33:219–240

    Google Scholar 

  18. Nass C, Moon Y (2000) Machines and mindlessness: social responses to computers. J Soc Issues 56(1):81–103

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Quick BL, Considine JR (2008) Examining the use of forceful language when designing exercise persuasive messages for adults: a test of conceptualizing reactance arousal as a two-step process. Health Commun 23:483–491

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Quick BL, Stephenson MT (2007a) The reactance restoration scale (RRS): a measure of direct and indirect restoration. Commun Res Rep 24(2):131–138

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Quick BL, Stephenson MT (2007b) Further evidence that psychological reactance can be modeled as a combination of anger and negative cognitions. Commun Res 34(3):255–276

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Quick BL, Stephenson MT (2008) examining the role of trait reactance and sensation seeking on perceived threat, state reactance, and reactance restoration. Hum Commun Res 34:448–476

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Rains SA, Turner MM (2007) Psychological reactance and persuasive health communication: a test and extension of the intertwined model. Hum Commun Res 33:241–269

    Google Scholar 

  24. Reeves B, Nass C (2002) The media equation: How people treat computers, television, and new media like real people and places. Cambridge University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  25. Reinhart AM, Marshall HM, Feeley TH, Tutzauer F (2007) The persuasive effects of message framing in organ donation: the mediating role of psychological reactance. Commun Monogr 74(2):229–255

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Ryan RM, Deci EL (2000) Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development and well-being. Am Psychol 55(1):68–78

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human-Technology Interaction, Eindhoven University of Technology, Den Dolech 2, 5600, MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Maaike Roubroeks, Jaap Ham & Cees Midden

Authors
  1. Maaike Roubroeks
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jaap Ham
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Cees Midden
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jaap Ham or Cees Midden.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Roubroeks, M., Ham, J. & Midden, C. When Artificial Social Agents Try to Persuade People: The Role of Social Agency on the Occurrence of Psychological Reactance. Int J of Soc Robotics 3, 155–165 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-010-0088-1

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-010-0088-1

Keywords

  • Persuasive agents
  • Psychological reactance
  • Intentionality
  • Social influence
  • Energy conservation behavior