Social Influence in the Workplace

In an investigation into resistance to social influence, researchers instructed individual employees at a large firm to sign a highly restrictive non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that retroactively waives their personal intellectual property rights, under the direct instructions of an intimidating senior executive.

Each participant performed the task in a meeting room alongside two other "employees", who were actually confederates of the researcher.

• Condition A: The two confederates immediately complied with the instructions and signed the NDA.
• Condition B: The two confederates vocally objected to the retroactive waiver, refused to sign without consulting legal counsel, and walked out of the meeting.

The researchers tested 25 participants in Condition A and 25 different participants in Condition B. They recorded the number of participants in each condition who refused to sign the agreement.