We will make you like our research: The development of a susceptibility-to-persuasion scale

Psychological and other persuasive mechanisms across diverse contexts are well researched, with many studies of the effectiveness of specific persuasive techniques on distinct types of human behaviour. In the present paper, our specific interest lies in the development of a generalized modular psych...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2018-03, Vol.13 (3), p.e0194119-e0194119
Main Authors: Modic, David, Anderson, Ross, Palomäki, Jussi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Behavior
Biology and Life Sciences
Computer and Information Sciences
Computer security
Crime
Cybercrime
Cybersecurity
Decision making
Educational evaluation
Fraud
Human behavior
Impulsivity
Laboratories
Marketing
Personality
Persuasion
Physical Sciences
Psychology
Research and Analysis Methods
Research methodology
Researchers
Security
Self control
Social Sciences
Student retention
Variance analysis
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Summary:Psychological and other persuasive mechanisms across diverse contexts are well researched, with many studies of the effectiveness of specific persuasive techniques on distinct types of human behaviour. In the present paper, our specific interest lies in the development of a generalized modular psychometric tool to measure individuals' susceptibility to persuasion. The scale is constructed using items from previously developed and validated particulate scales established in the domains of social psychology and behavioural economics. In the first study we establish the Susceptibility to Persuasion-II (StP-II) scale, containing 54 items, 10 subscales and further 6 sub-sub scales. In Study 2 we establish the scale's construct validity and reconfirm its reliability. We present a valid and reliable modular psychometric tool that measures general susceptibility to persuasive techniques. Since its inception, we have successfully implemented the StP-II scale to measure susceptibility to persuasion of IT security officers, the role of psychology of persuasion in cybercrime victims and general persuadability levels of Facebook users; these manuscripts are in preparation. We argue that the StP-II scale shows promise in measuring individual differences in susceptibility to persuasion, and is applicable across diverse contexts such as Internet security and cybercrime.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0194119