The coordination of problem solving strategies:When low competence sources exert moreinfluence on task processing than highcompetence sources

摘要

Previous research has shown that low competence sources, compared to highlycompetent sources, can exert influence in aptitudes tasks in as much as they inducepeople to focus on the task and to solve it more deeply. Two experiments aimed attesting the coordination between self and source's problem solving strategies as a mainexplanation of such a difference in influence. The influence of a low versus highcompetence source has been examined in an anagram task that allows for distinguishingbetween three response strategies, including one that corresponds to the coordinationbetween the source's strategy and participants' own strategy. In Study I the strategysuggested by the source was either relevant and useful or irrelevant and useless forsolving the task. Results indicated that participants used the coordination strategy in alarger extend when they had been confronted to a low competence rather than a highlycompetent source but only when the source displayed a strategy that was useful tosolve the task. In Study 2 the source's strategy was always relevant and useful, but adecentring procedure was introduced for half of the participants. This procedureinduced participants to consider other points of view than their own. Results replicatedthe difference observed in Study I when no decentring was introduced. The differencehowever disappeared when decentring was induced, because of an increase of the highcompetence source's influence. These results highlight coordination of strategies as onemechanism underlying influence from low competence sources.