"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with nonsense": extending the impact of the disrupt-then-reframe technique of social influence

Three experiments extended earlier findings on the impact of the Disrupt-Then-Reframe (DTR) technique on compliance. This technique is comprised of a subtle, odd element in a typical scripted request, the "disruption, " followed by a persuasive phrase, the "reframing." Based on the thought-disruption hypothesis (Petty & Wegener, 1999), we argue that its impact is generalizable across situations and that disrupting a conventional sales script not only increases the impact of the new reframing, but also increases susceptibility to influence resulting from other (congruence-based) persuasion techniques embedded in the influence setting. Three experiments provided support for our expectations. Specifically, the DTR technique reduced the extent of counter-argumentation to a sales script and boosted the impact of two other persuasion techniques: the continued questions procedure and message-goal congruence. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.