A Prophet Not in His (or Her) Own Land: The Effect of Distance Traversed on Social Influence

• In Event: Social Cognition, Comparison, and Influence

Abstract

Although research has found that the greater the distance between individuals, the less they are attracted to each other, persuaded by the distant other, or form friendships, the current research proposes the prophet not in his (or her) own land hypothesis. It looks at a potential positive side of distance: That being from afar may result in a person being perceived as having more honor, which translates to greater credibility as compared to a person who is local. Therefore, we test whether someone who is from far away is more persuasive than someone who is local. A structural equation model (N = 269) was used to test this general hypothesis, which found that distance has indirect effects that support our hypothesis. Distance affected perceptions of honor (praise to the agent and the expected attractiveness of the agent), which, in turn, caused belief change. Limitations and possible future research are discussed.

Authors

• Edward L. Fink, Temple University

• Deborah A. Cai, Temple University

• Sanja Sipek, U of Maryland