The Value and Vulnerability of Perceived Religious Involvement

Abstract

The relation between sequential request influence strategies and social power was examined, using a social impact theory model of perception. It was predicted that a door-in-the-face (DITF) scenario would suggest a greater difference in power between a giver and seeker than a foot-in-the-door (FITD) scenario would. Two judgment studies using American students at two different universities measured the perceived power of two individuals, the favor giver and the favor seeker, in either the DITF or the FITD. In both studies, the subjects perceived a significantly greater power difference between the giver and the seeker in the DITF strategy than they did in the FITD.     

Attributions in the New Zealand Sports Pages

Abstract

Foot-in-the-door (FITD) and door-in-the face (DITF) techniques were compared in a telephone survey that also sought to assess how legitimate the source of the request seemed to the respondents. Calls were made to 120 Americans by an interviewer from a fictitious private consulting firm, using a source name designed to have low perceived legitimacy. It had been expected from previous research that only the FITD technique would successfully produce compliance under these circumstances, and that the FITD compilers would also yield higher ratings of the source's legitimacy than either the DITF or a control. This prediction was confirmed, but some evidence suggested that the source legitimacy question in the procedure also affected the compliance level of DITF subjects.     

Door-in-the-Face Technique and Delay to Fulfill the Final Request: An Evaluation With a Request to Give Blood

We tested the Door-in-the-Face technique (DITF) on blood donation with a delay between the acceptance of the request and the real possibility of complying with it. University students were solicited to give blood during a special one-day drive. After the refusal to participate in a long-term donor program, participants were asked for a one unit blood donation. In the control condition, only the latter request was addressed. The participants were either solicited two or three hours before the blood drive (delay) or during the blood drive (no delay). Results showed the DITF technique to be associated with greater verbal compliance with the request. However, the DITF technique with no delay was associated with greater behavioral compliance than were both of the control conditions and the DITF with a delay condition.     

The effect of the two feet-in-the-door technique on tobacco deprivation

The ‘Foot-in-the-door’ (FITD) is a well-known compliance technique that increases compliance with a request. Many investigations on this paradigm have generally used prosocial requests to test the effect of the technique. A new evaluation of the effect of the FITD technique was carried out on tobacco deprivation. A two feet-in-the-door technique in which the target request was preceded by two small target requests was used to encourage students to stop smoking for 24 h. The results were compared with two single foot-in-the- door procedures in which the final request was only preceded by one small request, as well as with a control condition using only a 24 h stop-smoking request. Results showed that the single FITD and the two feet-in-the-door procedures were effective to increase verbal compliance (accepting to stop smoking) but only the two feet-in-the-door technique significantly increased behavioural compliance (not smoking for 24 h) with the request.     

Mindlessness Revisited: Sequential Request Techniques Foster Compliance by Draining Self-control Resources

The present research extends previous findings suggesting that sequential request techniques, such as the Foot-in-the-Door (FITD) or Door-in-the-Face (DITF) technique, are primarily effective under conditions conducive of mindlessness. We forward that this mindlessness may be the product of the influence technique itself. More specifically, based on the notion of self-control as a limited resource, we hypothesize that actively responding to the initial request-phase of a FITD-compliance gaining procedure drains the target of his/her self-regulatory resources, thus creating the mindlessness so often observed in social influence settings. This resource depletion opens the door for compliance with the target request. The results were in line with these expectations. More specifically, we observed that active responding to an initial request of a FITD technique reduced the availability of self-regulatory resources. This state of resource depletion mediated the effect of the technique on behavioral compliance. In addition, the results of this study ruled out the alternate explanation that the effects were attributable to mood or a general tendency for acquiescence.     

A Guilt-Based Explanation of the Door-in-the-Face Influence Strategy

A new explanation is proposed for the accumulated research findings concerning the door-in-the-face (DITF) influence strategy. The explanation treats successful DITF implementations as based on guilt: Refusal of the first request creates guilt, and compliance with the second request reduces guilt. In addition to explaining the known effects of DITF moderator variables, the explanation is consistent with current theoretical and empirical understandings of the nature of guilt and with extant research findings concerning guilt-based social influence. This explanation also suggests a significant role for a new moderator, the identity of the beneficiary of the requests. A reanalysis of previous meta-analytic findings confirms the importance of that moderator.     

The Use of Metacommunication in Compliance: Door-in-the-Face and Single-Request Strategies

Abstract

Investigation of compliance techniques has generally overlooked a dynamic involving a target's dilemma over directly commenting about the imposition of the requester's behavior. Such behavior is generally classified as being metacommunicative in nature. In two studies, the authors tested the hypothesis that compliance can be enhanced when the target is asked to metacommunicate about the appropriateness of an imposition in order to refuse it. American participants were exposed to door-in-the-face (DITF) and single-request strategies that used either metacommunicative or standard language. Although metacommunicative DITF strategies yielded significant compliance effects, the obtained levels were not significantly greater than those of standard DITF strategies. However, when communication style (metacommunicative language) was considered independent of strategy, significant overall effects were found. Therefore, the use of metacommunicative binds in the language of single requests may facilitate compliance.     

Self-Inference and the Foot-in-the-Door Technique Quantity of Behavior and Attitudinal Mediation

The purpose of this investigation was to test two aspects of the self-perception theory account of the foot-in-the-door (FITD) phenomenon. The first aspect tested was the claim that the greater the quantity of behavior associated with the initial request, the greater the likelihood of compliance with the later request. Quantity of behavior was operation-alized as (a) request size and (b) active versus passive execution, that is, whether the target person actually carried out the request or simply agreed to do so. The second aspect tested was the claim that changes in self-perception mediate the FITD effect. A field experiment was conducted to address these concerns. The results showed that a self-inference explanation is viable; however, a strict self-perception account fails because neither request size nor execution showed any correspondence to attitudinal measures or to compliance with the second request. Implications for a self-inference explanation are discussed.     

A Dual Process Theory Explanation for Door-in-the-Face Effectiveness

Two field experiments demonstrate that additive effects of heuristic and systematic processing can explain door-in-the-face technique (DITF) compliance. In Study 1, additive effects of heuristic and systematic processing resulted in an increase in charitable donations. Study 2 replicated the additive effects mean differences observed in the first. Attitude toward a charitable issue was also more strongly correlated with donations in a strong arguments than a no arguments DITF condition, compatible with an additive effects explanation. Both studies indicate that rational processing of argument information has a significant and independent effect on donations in addition to traditional heuristic processing typically inferred in explaining DITF compliance.     

The lure technique: Generalization and moderating effects

IntroductionThe lure technique, first studied by Joule, Gouilloux and Weber (1989), involves three stages: (1) an individual is led to make a rewarding decision to realize a given behavior; (2) he is informed of the impossibility of realizing this behavior; (3) we propose making a new less rewarding decision based on another behavior (target-request).ObjectiveFive experiments are presented in this paper that tested the effect of the delay between the two requests, whether the same experimenter or a further made the second request and whether the two requests concerned or not the same specific goal.Method and resultsIn the experiments, the rewarding decision deals with participating in a paid and interesting research project (viewing a video before answering a questionnaire) and the target-request concerns participating in an unpaid and more tedious research project (copying symbols). As expected, the participants subjected to the lure technique were significantly more numerous to accept the target-request than the participants in the control group. This effect was obtained independently of the sex of the experimenter and the participants (Experiment 1), whether the same experimenter successively makes the first and second request or the two requests are made by two different experimenters (Experiment 2). It was also obtained when the initial request and the target-request do not concern the same specific goal (Experiment 3), but it is no longer obtained when a delay separates the target-request from the announcement of the impossibility of carrying out the first decision (Experiments 4 and 5).ConclusionThe discomfort aroused by the fact of not being able to carry out the first request and pressure to reduce such discomfort was used to explain the lure technique effect.     

TIME DELAY: A TECHNIQUE TO INCREASE LANGUAGE USE AND FACILITATE GENERALIZATION IN RETARDED CHILDREN

Institutional breakfast-serving procedures were manipulated to assess what effect changes in that aspect of the environment would have on requests for food. During baseline, six severely retarded children were required to pick up their food trays and return to their seats. The first manipulation, delaying the giving of the food tray for 15 seconds, served as a cue to evoke meal requests by three of the six children. Two of the remaining three required a model of an appropriate meal request (i.e., “Tray, please.”) at the end of the 15-second delay before they began requesting their meals. To evoke meal requests from the sixth child, an intensive training procedure, consisting of massed trials of delay and modeling, was required. Three different probes were administered to assess generalization across the people serving the meals, across mealtimes, and across both people and mealtimes. Typically, generalized responding in these new situations could be prompted by use of the 15-second delay procedure. Functional aspects of the delay procedure and its potential usefulness for evoking speech and facilitating generalization are discussed.     

Claw-in-the-door: pigeons,like humans,display the foot-in-the-door effect

Animal Cognition - People are more likely to comply with a large request when it is preceded by another, smaller request, and this is known as the “foot-in-the-door” (FITD). The FITD...     

Is young children’s recognition of pretense metarepresentational or merely behavioral? Evidence from 2- and 3-year-olds’ understanding of pretend sounds and speech

When young children observe pretend-play, do they interpret it simply as a type of behavior, or do they infer the underlying mental state that gives the behavior meaning? This is a long-standing question with deep implications for how “theory on mind” develops. The two leading accounts of shared pretense give opposing answers. The behavioral theory proposes that children represent pretense as a form of behavior (behaving in a way that would be appropriate if P); the metarepresentational theory argues that children instead represent pretense via the early concept PRETEND. A test between these accounts is provided by children’s understanding of pretend sounds and speech. We report the first experiments directly investigating this understanding. In three experiments, 2- and 3-year-olds’ listened to requests that were either spoken normally, or with the pretense that a teddy bear was uttering them. To correctly fulfill the requests, children had to represent the normal utterance as the experimenter’s, and the pretend utterances as the bear’s. Children succeeded at both ages, suggesting that they can represent pretend speech (the requests) as coming from counterfactual sources (the bear rather than the experimenter). We argue that this is readily explained by the metarepresentational theory, but harder to explain if children are behaviorists about pretense.     

Recruiting Teen Smokers in Shopping Malls to a Smoking-Cessation Program Using the Foot-in-the-Door Technique

Persuading teen smokers to volunteer for smoking-cessation programs is a challenging yet understudied problem. As a method of dealing with this problem, we used and tested a foot-in-the-door (FITD) approach. Teen smokers were intercepted at malls and were assigned randomly to request compliance with a small behavior request of either (a) answering a few questions (light FITD) or (b) answering the same questions and a few additional ones, plus watching a short video about the effects of nicotine (heavy FITD). Participants were then called back by telephone several weeks later and asked to comply with a large behavior request of joining a cessation program that involved the use of self-help materials and telephone counseling. Although no differences were found in responses from the light and heavy groups, consent to enter the program was obtained from 12% of the pooled qualified intercepts and their parents (for those under 18 years). This recruitment rate was considered good, given that this is one of the only reported studies that recruited teen smokers from the general population to cessation programs.     

学习困难和优秀学生延迟满足能力的跨情境比较实验研究

探讨学习困难学生(学困生)和学习优秀学生(学优生)在三种不同情境下——独自操作、单一团体操作和混合团体操作,延迟满足能力的差异.结果表明:(1)在延迟满足实验中,被试变量(学优生、学困生)与情境变量(独自、单一团体、混合团体)的交互作用显著;(2)在独自操作和单一团体情境下,学优生延迟满足能力显著高于学困生,混合团体则不存在这种差异;(3)学优生的延迟满足能力在独自操作和单一团体时水平较高,而混合团体的成绩则显著的低于单一团体,学困生的延迟满足能力在单一团体和混合团体时水平较高,而单独操作成绩则显著低于混合团体.本研究一方面拓展了对延迟满足能力的群体比较研究,同时,对学困生的心理教育实践也有指导意义.     

Proactive interference and spontaneous alternation in rats

Two pairs of trials were given to naive rats in a T-maze. The first trial of a pair was forced to one arm, the second was free, and the delay between trials was 25 min. or 10 hr. Rats left in the maze for 15 sec. following the forced choice showed increased alternation on the second pair of trials at the 25-min. delay as compared with the 10-hr. delay. This was interpreted as due to a decline in alternation with delay on this pair of trials, together with an overall increase in alternation between the first and second pairs, and is consistent with the proactive interference theory of forgetting. Rats left in for 2 min. showed a decline in alternation with delay on the first pair of trials, but not on the second; this is inconsistent with the proactive interference theory.     

Explaining Delay in Care Seeking for Breast Cancer Symptoms1

From a theory of care-seeking behavior, this study answered two questions: Do psychosocial variables (anxiety, utility, norm, and habit) and objective, facilitating conditions (e. g., regular practitioner) influence care-seeking delay with a breast symptom directly, or are psychosocial influences moderated by facilitating conditions? Do demographic or clinical factors explain delay, controlling for psychosocial variables and facilitating conditions? Women with breast cancer symptoms (N= 106) completed questionnaire measures. Delay was measured by the days between symptom detection and first contact with the health system. Norm and having a regular practitioner were related inversely to delay. The influence of anxiety was moderated by having a regular practitioner. Among women lacking a practitioner, anxiety was related inversely to delay; among women with a practitioner, anxiety was not related to delay. Controlling for psychosocial variables and facilitating conditions, women of color delayed longer than did Caucasians. Findings can guide research and theory about care seeking.     

Memory for recent behavior in the pigeon

Variations of the symbolic delayed-matching-to-sample procedure were used to study a pigeon's memory for a small number of pecks. In the first experiment a choice of a left or right sidekey after a delay or retention interval was reinforced if a bird had not pecked at all or had pecked exactly once, before the delay, respectively. In the second experiment a choice of a red or green sidekey, regardless of its position, was reinforced if a bird had not pecked at all or had pecked exactly twice, respectively. In the first experiment a bird could orient toward the correct choice during the delay, whereas it could not in the second experiment. In a third experiment a feature-probing method was used to study a pigeon's memory for a number of pecks in the context of certain other pecks. The results showed that a pigeon can remember a small number of pecks for one-half to one minute or more and that the percent correct is a decreasing function of the log retention interval. When a second number of pecks is different from the first number, memory for the first number lasts only a few seconds. When a second number is the same, memory lasts considerably longer. The more recent number of pecks is remembered better. The results are interpreted in terms of a theory which holds that a reinforcer, in general, may act on a subjects' memory for recent behavior to generate patterns of behavior.     

Humour mediates the facilitative effect of bizarreness in delayed recall

The first empirical study focused exclusively on the influence of bizarre elaboration on memory ( Delin, 1968 ) indicated a significant relationship between bizarreness and recall after a 15‐week delay. However, that study was strongly criticized on methodological grounds. The present study offers a conceptual replication of Delin's historically significant study which sought to verify his influential, yet criticized, results and to test the possibility that a humour response mediates the relationship between bizarre elaboration and recall using multiple regression procedures. In keeping with Delin's findings, the results of the present study suggest that bizarre elaboration facilitates both free and cued recall after a substantial delay. The results also suggest that the facilitative effects of bizarreness are mediated by humour. The findings are discussed in the context of a comprehensive theory of bizarreness effects.     

Limiting Time for Responding Enhances Behavior Corresponding to the Merits of Compliance Appeals: Refutations of Heuristic‐Cue Theory in Service and Consumer Settings

Scarcity has been widely assumed (e.g., Cialdini, 1993) to function as a cue and thereby hinder evaluative scrutiny of compliance‐gaining requests (appeals). In contrast, liberalized commodity theory (Brock & Brannon, 1992) postulated that scarcity should augment evaluative scrutiny of requests and thereby enhance behavioral correspondence to the merits of requests. In natural‐setting tests, 143 telephone operators and 305 fast‐food customers complied more with a request in response to strong than to weak reasons and did so especially when the request was accompanied by scarcity information, operationalized as a time restriction on responding. Thus, restriction did not function as a cue. Rather, in both service and consumer settings, scarcity enhanced behavior that corresponded to the merits of requests. Compliance theorists and practitioners should reconsider the cue claim for compliance appeals and should weigh the implications of bidirectional responding to compliance appeals.