Effectance reduction through speaking in reply and its relation to attraction

Considers that D. Byrne's attraction paradigm does not afford the S an opportunity to reply to the stranger who disagrees with him. Disagreement repels through the induction of noxious drive, but replying reduces this drive. 2 experiments with university students (N = 136) are reported which show that disagreement can lead to high-attraction scores rather than the usual repulsion if replying to the stranger associates him with reduction of noxious drive. Attraction scores were highest for strangers to whom the Ss could make a full reply in their own words, lower for strangers to whom Ss could reply only by using an oral rating scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree, and lowest for strangers to whom Ss could not reply (p < .001). Ss who could not reply, as in the standard attraction paradigm, conformed to the D. Byrne and D. Nelson and to the G. L. Clore and B. Baldridge formulas. (40 ref)