The getting-what-you-want technique

Compliance refers to how we persuade others to agree to our direct requests. Robert Cialdini (2021) is well-known for studying the strategies people use to achieve compliance effectively. In this blog, I will focus on the door-in-the-face technique, a sequential strategy (Cialdini, 1975) where you begin with a large request that you know will be rejected, then follow up with a smaller one. Because the second favor seems much more reasonable in comparison, people are more likely to agree to it. 


In a classic study, Cialdini (1975) tested this technique by first asking college students to volunteer two hours a week for two years at a counseling center for troubled youth. Unsurprisingly, most students said no. The researchers then followed up with a much smaller request, asking if the students would volunteer to take kids on a two-hour trip to the zoo. Results showed that when this smaller request came after the big one, 50% of students agreed to the zoo trip—compared to just 17% who agreed when the small request was asked on its own. Cialdini’s (1975) research demonstrates that people are much more likely to agree to a small, sequential request after first refusing a much larger one.


When I was younger, I unknowingly used the door-in-the-face technique on my mom. Growing up, she was very strict—tracking me when I went out, enforcing curfews, and even limiting how far I could go in our small town in Mexico. One summer weekend, I wanted to go to the local public pool with my friends, which was far from the town’s center and required a car. I knew she wouldn’t say yes if I asked directly, so I came up with a clever plan. I first asked if I could borrow her car to take my friends camping for the weekend in a neighboring town about an hour away. As expected, she immediately refused. 


After sulking and whining for a while, I returned and asked if I could just use the car to take my friends to the pool for the day instead. Compared to the camping trip, this seemed much more reasonable to her, and she agreed. I knew she would see it as a much better idea since it was just for one day instead of a whole weekend, and the pool was much closer than the hour-long drive to the campsite. Plus, if anything went wrong, I’d still be in town and easy for her to contact. Thus, I used Cialdini’s (1975) door-in-the-face technique—starting with a big, unlikely request made it much more likely that my mom would agree to the smaller one!


n = 436


Honor Code: I have acted with honesty and integrity in producing this work and am unaware of anyone who has not. /s/ Maya Moran Piedfort


References:


Cialdini, R. B. (2021). Influence: The psychology of persuasion, new and expanded. HarperCollins. 

Cialdini, R. B., Vincent, J. E., Lewis, S. K., Catalan, J., Wheeler, D., & Darby, B. L. (1975). Reciprocal concessions procedure for inducing compliance: The door-in-the-face technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 206-215.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to my Blog!

Hello beautiful people! My name is Maya Moran Piedfort, and I'm a senior at Southwestern pursuing a B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Feminist Studies. On campus, I'm involved in Alpha Xi Delta, the Student Foundation, the Senior Committee, and Psi Chi the International Honor Society in Psychology. I'm extremely passionate about understanding people and learning how to support them, which is why I'm so excited to be taking Social Psychology. That's all for now, see you in my next blog!
Read more

Theory of Planned Fitness

As demonstrated by sociologist Richard LaPiere (1934), our attitudes do not always perfectly predict how we behave. People sometimes act in ways that don't fully align with their beliefs. To better explain this gap, Icek Ajzen proposed the Theory of Planned Behavior (1991), suggesting that behavior is influenced not only by our attitudes but also by subjective norms and our perceived control of the behavior. According to this theory, behavior is predicted by a person’s intention, which is shaped by three factors. Attitudes , or our positive or negative evaluations of something or someone, help shape these intentions. In general, attitudes that are stronger and more specific are better predictors of behavior because they’re more accessible in memory through priming. Moreover, subjective norms also influence behaviors. The social pressures and expectations we experience from others—such as friends or family—can strongly affect the choices we make. Lastly, perceived control/self...
Read more

FAE-ling to Make the Right Attribution

The fundamental attribution error , introduced by Lee Ross (1977), refers to the tendency to explain others’ behavior as a reflection of their disposition while underestimating the influence of situational factors. This bias occurs because people naturally focus on observable behavior, which is more salient than situational factors (Heider, 1958), leading them to automatically attribute actions to the person rather than the context. One of the first and most widely known pieces of evidence for the fundamental attribution error comes from a study by Jones and Harris (1967). In this experiment, participants read essays written by students that either supported or opposed Fidel Castro, the leader of Cuba at the time. Participants were told that the writers either freely chose their position or were assigned it, when in reality, all positions were randomly assigned. After reading the essays, participants were asked to infer the writers’ true attitudes toward Castro. When participants beli...
Read more