Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion · chapter 6 · id influence-c6-07-people-automatically-defer-to-
“People automatically defer to authority symbols even when actual authority is absent -- a man in a guard uniform gets 92% compliance vs 42% in street clothes for the same arbitrary request.”
VERIFIEDconfidence: high⚠ extracted by pipeline, re-audit pending
Receipts
Bickman (1974), The Social Power of a Uniform, Journal of Applied Social Psychology 4(1)FLAGGED: DOI not in registry
A man in a guard uniform received 92% compliance vs 42% in street clothes and 50% in milkman's uniform.
Bushman (1988), The Effects of Apparel on Compliance, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 14(3)DOI registry: valid
Replicated Bickman's finding: people were more likely to comply with a request from a person in uniform than one in civilian clothes, across multiple types of requests.
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