Persuasive effects of sales messages developed from interaction process analysis

Abstract

In a field experiment, 3 salesmen employed 6 alternative messages in attempting to sell a magazine subscription to student Ss randomly selected from the registrar's listing at a major university. 3 conversational and 3 nonconversational messages, developed from Bales's Interaction Process Analysis, were employed in a telephone selling paradigm designed to minimize extraneous nonverbal communication. Each salesman contacted prospective Ss (n = 78, 73, and 118) until he had completed 42 sales attempts, 7 per message, for which a postquestionnaire was administered. Salesman * Sales Treatment interactions indicated that perception of and success of the salesman could not be separated from the sales message. Results support balance theory and the perceived similarity hypothesis, but not the extended perceived similarity hypothesis. (17 ref) (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)