A simple technique was devised to measure the influence of E when commanding S to do something he would rather not do. Each S was first told to press a standard hand counter until he wanted to stop and then, when he had stopped, he was ordered to “Keep pressing.” Sex and age of children and sex of an adult E were varied in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design. Compliance, the number of presses of the hand counter after the instruction to keep pressing, was greatest for male fourth graders on command by the male E.
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