Behavioral Versus Questionnaire Measures of Influence

In this project we examine the relationship between attitudinal measures of expectations and influence and a behavioral measure in an experimental setting.  The attitudinal measures are typical questionnaire items regarding a study participant's views of themselves, a partner, and their task after interaction.  The behavioral measure, P(s), is the standard dependent variable for the kinds of experiments from which the data comes.  P(s) reflects the participant's resistance to influence from his/her partner and is thought to reflect underlying expectations for competence.  In this study we regress P(s) on the series of attitudinal questionnaire items regarding expectations, influence, and affect.  Results indicate that there is a strong relationship between attitude and behavior.  Further, attitudes about ability, particularly the partner's ability, are more closely associated with behavioral influence than affective sentiment is.