Abstract
An experiment examined the conditions under which an expert source induces less competent targets to adopt a point of view contradicting their own in a context of information transmission. In a 2×2 factorial design participants (N=86) were either 1st year or 4th year university students, and the style of the message delivered by the epistemic authority was either authoritarian or democratic. The main dependent variable was the degree to which participants went beyond mere approval and adopted the contradicting information. The principal finding was that the contradicting information was adopted more readily by the 1st year participants confronted with an authoritarian as compared to a democratic expert source. Students in their 4th year were more influenced by a democratic source than the 1st year students. These results partially confirm the correspondence hypothesis according to which appropriation of knowledge from an expert source is favoured when the characteristics of the influence relations match fundamental expectations that individuals have concerning this relationship, these expectations varying as a function of the stage they have reached in their university education.
Résumé
Une expérimentation examine les conditions auxquelles une source experte induit des cibles moins compétentes qu’elle à adopter un point de vue contredisant le leur dans un contexte de transmission d’information. Dans un plan factoriel 2×2, les sujets (N=86) étaient des étudiants universitaires de 1ère ou de 4ème année, et le message délivré par l’autorité épistémique était formulé dans un style autoritaire ou démocratique. La principale mesure était le degré auquel les sujets allaient au-delà d’une simple approbation du message et adoptaient l’information contradictoire. Les résultats mettent principalement en évidence que l’information est davantage appropriée par les sujets de 1ère année confrontés à la source experte autoritaire plutôt que démocratique. Les étudiants de 4ème année sont plus influencés par la source démocratique que ceux de 1ère année. Ces résultats confirment partiellement l’hypothèse de correspondance selon laquelle l’appropriation de connaissances émanant d’une source experte est favorisée lorsque les caractéristiques de la relation d’influence correspond à des attentes fondamentales que les individus ont quant à cette relation, attentes qui varient en fonction du stade qu’ils ont atteint dans leur éducation universitaire.
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This study was supported by the National Foundation for Scientific Research, Switzerland, and the Program Avenir, Rhône-Alpes, France.
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Quiamzade, A., Mugny, G., Cléopas, A.D. et al. Interaction styles and expert social influence. Eur J Psychol Educ 18, 389–404 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03173243
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03173243