Arousal of Psychological Reactance as a Consequence of Predicting an Individual's Behaviour

Abstract

Subjects' aesthetic choices were predicted on the basis of a “personality test” described as being either 58%, 68%, or 78% accurate. The results were consistent with the notion that such prediction would be perceived as a threat to behavioural freedom and result in the arousal of psychological reactance. Subjects who were led to believe that the test was fairly accurate in predicting choices, as compared to those who thought their choices to be minimally predictable, were both more likely to choose the opposite of what was predicted and to change their ratings such that the predicted choice was devalued and the nonpredicted choice revalued upwards. The results may have important implications for a situation in which either implicit or explicit predictions of an individual's behaviour are made.