NCJ Number
81803
Journal
Social Forces Volume: 60 Issue: 3 Dated: (March 1982) Pages: 811-825
Date Published
1982
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This study examines the role-related conditions which generate a target's compliance with a source when threatened with genuine, severe punishment.
Abstract
Given the ethical restrictions of laboratory experimentation, cases of robbery are used as a data base. Compliance is affected by the source's capacity to punish, intent as to the use of force, and the target's capacity to oppose and ability to comply with the source's command. If the source is perceived as capable of inflicting threatened punishment and as making punishment contingent on opposition, and if the target perceives self as incapable of effective opposition and able to comply, the target will comply. Some implications of this research are discussed. (Social Forces and author abstract)