One who agrees against his will, Is of the same opinion still !

Compliance refers to the act of following instructions or conforming to the expectations or demands of others. It is an important concept in psychology and child development as it relates to how individuals, particularly children, respond to authority figures and social norms. Compliance can occur due to various reasons, including a desire to avoid punishment, gain rewards, or seek approval from others.

To understand the practical outcomes of compliance tactics, Jonathan Freedman, a social psychologist conducted an experiment involving school boys to assess their compliance to directions to not do a certain activity. The direction in this regard was to not play with a particularly attractive toy and different samples of school boys were given directions in different ways.

In the first leg of the experiment, Freedman invited the boys one at a time into the experiment room and presented them with 5 toys to play with. However, he gave a command to the child to not play with an attractive robot toy and sternly warned that he would get really angry if the child played with the toy after he left the room. The room had a one-way see-through mirror. The boys were observed while Freedman was away. Most of the children did not play with the toy.

After two weeks, the second leg of the experiment was planned. This time a female researcher from Freedman’s team went to the same school to perform the experiment on the same sample of boys. This time, she invited the children one at a time, in a similar fashion to the experiment room, and gave them a drawing test. She also told them that they could play with the same 5 toys Freedman had early presented. The attractive Robot was still a part of the set. The researcher left the room to observe the boys.

This time the female researcher noted that the kids did not shy from playing with the robot and 77% in fact played with the Robot which had earlier been forbidden by Freedman. The effect of the stern warning had faded away and the boys no longer felt the effect of the warning to ward off playing with an amusing toy.

Freedman conducted yet another experiment with a different sample of boys this time with a slight tweak in the command. This time while asking the boys to not play with the toys he did not give a strong warning. Rather, he asked them to not play with the toy as it was not right to do so. While he went out, he saw that the boys did not play with the robot toy similar to when a strong warning was given to the other set of boys.

Freedman was not more curious to see how things would turn out in the second leg. The female researcher conducted the second leg, 6 weeks later, as she did earlier. This time to the utter surprise of Freedman, when the boys were given the opportunity to play with the set of toys, only 33% of them actually play with the robot. This meant that a strong threat to not play with the toy actually resulted in non-compliance later, a simple request with the message that it was just not right to do so resulted in greater compliance.

The underlying psychological mechanism at play was the tendency of children to avoid an action till a threat loomed over it.This indicated the internalization of the responsibility of the boys to not do something that was asked of them. This also means that the threat only worked till there was the possibility of punishment. There is an important lesson for parenting here.

The second set of boys actually took personal responsibility for their choices to stay away from the robot toy. They did not play with the toy because they did not want to as they had been changed inside. Parents usually believe that a threat works for their child to avoid a particular behavior. Sure, it does work temporarily. For the period that the threat looms, the child may not indulge in that particular behavior. However, when the time is ripe and no looming threat they resort to the old pattern.

The experiment’s findings resonate with my own experiences in owning up to responsibility. I was never a studious person in school. I never took studies as seriously as sports. My parents did give us the freedom to pursue sports but not at the cost of studies. After evening sports, they made me and my younger brother sit and study. Maybe this is all they could do as they have no specific psychological training to influence us into compliance.

Corporal punishment threats were the means to make us finish our homework and wake up early for school. The parental pressure continued from high school to college where I had become a vagabond and had no interest in studying. I dodged all the pressures from my father to become sincere and get serious about my grades.

After a while, he stopped bothering himself and me with my scores as I did not improve. I was in deep trouble by the 3^rd year of my college and was having backlogs that were going beyond my control.

I realized I needed to get my shit together if I wanted to do something in my life. I developed a sense of responsibility for the first time in my life. Small incremental changes helped me finish college on time and even grab a job placement just on time. I was happy to have achieved what was unthinkable a year ago.

I was on my own and responsible for my life. After struggling hard for 3 months and facing harsh realities of life I realized there was a bigger thing to do in life. I started preparing for UPSC. I managed to clear the exam after 2 years of reforming myself and studying subjects that I had never read before.

Now, how did the change happen? It did not happen because my parents forced it upon me, neither it happened because of societal pressure. It happened because I took responsibility for my choices. But my parent’s lamenting did help me realize that I was not on the right path.

It was a conscious choice to study for long hours over an easy-settled life with a job. I chose it because my life was my responsibility and not my parents.

So. parents need to get this idea early that till their child understands his/her responsibility for the choices- threats, and pressures will not work to persuade them. The effort should rather be put into making them understand their responsibilities through love and advice and not through threatening coercion. At least the findings of this study present so.