CONCEPTUAL DETERMINANTS OF INFLUENCIBILITY

Individuals varying in conceptual makeup were subjected to a series of experimental manipulations calculated to elicit different responses from the varyingly constituted participants. More specifically, representatives of the four nodal conceptual systems posited by Harvey, Hunt and Schroder 1961 were exposed to experimental variations that were expected to pull differential yielding to or reliance upon external cues and social influence. According to the theory of Harvey, et al., representatives of these four conceptual systems vary not only in terms of concreteness-abstractness, as a function of the developmental stage they have attained, but they also vary in terms of the cues or guide lines on which they tend to rely in cognizing and reacting to given classes of stimulus events or situations.