Carol A. Scott

Modifying Socially-Conscious Behavior: The Foot-in-the-Door Technique

The results of a field experiment conducted to test the effectiveness of a behavioral influence strategy predicated on self-perception theory in producing persistent behavior change is reported here. The findings demonstrate the efficacy of this approach, but provide only modest support for the self-perception explanation of its effects.

Consumer Response to Initial Product Trial: A Bayesian Analysis

A Bayesian model was employed to assess consumer responses to the trial of a new product when one situational and two information factors were varied. The results demonstrate a tendency to accept information consistent with ones perceptions about the causes of behavior, and to reject information when it contradicts these attributions.

A test of the self-perception explanation of the effects of rewards on intrinsic interest

Abstract An experiment was conducted to test the proposition that rewards undermine or enhance intrinsic interest in a task to the extent that individuals interpret their behavior as being motivated by the reward. It was predicted that when subjects were denied the opportunity to develop and confirm this attribution, rewards would not produce an undermining effect, but rather would enhance dispositions and behavior. Subjects were recruited to evaluate a new sugar-free soft drink. Two levels of incentives (reward-no reward), two levels of examination (opportunity-no opportunity), and three levels of outcome (good-neutral-poor) were employed. The results support the prediction that an incentives effect depends on the examination opportunity. In the examination condition, rewarded subjects attributed their behavior more to external factors than did unrewarded subjects, but gave more negative product evaluations only after tasting it. In the no examination condition, there were no differences in the attributions made by rewarded and unrewarded subjects, and rewarded subjects were more positively disposed toward the product both before and after tasting it. These results are explained as a consequence of two properties of rewards, enhancement through reinforcement and undermining through discounting, and of hypothesis-testing processes.