Premium
A Laboratory Demonstration of the Fraudulent Telemarketers’ 1‐in‐5 Prize Tactic 1
Author(s) -
Horvitz Todd,
Pratkanis Anthony R.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2002.tb00217.x
Subject(s) - acquiescence , psychology , compliance (psychology) , social psychology , law , political science , politics
Two laboratory experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the 1‐in‐5 prize tactic for perpetrating telemarketing fraud crimes. Across these experiments, the 1‐in‐5 prize tactic (securing acquiescence to a request by misleading a person to believe that he or she has won a valuable prize) resulted in a 5‐fold increase in compliance, including 100% yielding in conditions most similar to those used by fraudulent telemarketers. Possible psychological mechanisms underlying the tactic (including phantom fixation) are discussed.