The Experimental Analysis of Interpersonal Influence Processes

The flow of behavior in communicative situations is divided into valid categories on the basis of a variety of empirical criteria. The present report is concerned with designating social influence categories according to antecedent and consequent events (contextual criteria). The necessity of experimental control of contextual events for unbiased validation of categories is discussed along with the importance of experimental conditions which are reasonably complementary or analogous to the kinds of social situations about which the investigator wishes to make inferences. Key requisites of such procedures are presented. These are the establishment of a social‐interactive perspective in subjects, the free choice of response configurations by subjects, and the regular provision of clear and unconfounded contextual‐criterion events within the social interaction process. A program of research is reviewed in which these recommended experimental procedures were employed to derive functional categories of social influence behavior. Both obvious and nonobvious behavioral configurations are identified in such processes as eliciting approval, controlling verbal content, and facilitating learning.