Undermining Effects of the Foot-in-the-Door Technique with Extrinsic Rewards

The self-perception explanation of the foot-in-the-door technique suggests that a person who complies with a small request infers that he or she is the kind of generous individual who is more likely to comply with a larger demand. It was hypothesized that individuals who are promised a monetary reward for their compliance with a small request are not more likely to comply with a larger demand because they cannot perceive themselves as generous persons. To test this hypothesis, subjects were presented with a small request (a 5-minute telephone interview) followed, 2 or 3 days later, by a larger demand (a 25-minute telephone interview). Some of the subjects were promised a monetary reward for their compliance with a small request (pay condition) while others were not promised a reward (no-pay condition). Results showed that rate of compliance in the no-pay conditon (64.3%) was significantly higher than rate of compliance in either a no-initial-request control condition (45.0%) or the pay condition (33.3%). The difference in rate of compliance between the control condition and the pay condition was not significant.     

Touch, compliance, and awareness of tactile contact

Many experimental studies have shown that touch increases compliance with a request; however, the difference between the effect of touch on compliance between participants who notice and those who do not notice such contact remains in question. An experiment was conducted in which a female confederate asked 368 female smokers to give her a cigarette. In the Touch condition, when making her request, the confederate slightly touched the participant on her forearm. Analysis showed the touch was associated with significantly higher compliance to the request, and a difference was evident in the Touch condition between subjects who had noticed the tactile contact and those who had not.     

Group Decision as a Technique for Obtaining Compliance: Some Added Considerations Concerning How Altruism Leads to Callousness

Bennett (1955) reported that a critical condition for producing Lewin's (1958) classic group discussion-decision effect (is., high compliance with a request from an authority figure) was a group consensus strongly favoring compliance. This finding prompted investigation of variables potentially affecting such a consensus. A first study found that group consensus is significantly less likely to favor compliance if subjects are allowed to make a majority rather than an individual decision. Group size had no significant effects on decision-making. A second study replicated this effect and investigated several explanations for it. These results suggest that, at least when compliance is not in the subjects' best interest, the Lewinian group discussion-decision effect will be less likely to be found if a majority decision role is followed as opposed to an individual decision rule. The implication of these data for social engineering is discussed.     

The Effects of Vocalics and Nonverbal Sensitivity on Compliance A Speech Accommodation Theory Explanation

A speech accommodation theory explanation for the interaction between a receiver's decoding ability and a speaker's voice tone on compliance with requests for help was tested. It was predicted that good decoders would speak faster than poor decoders. Speech accommodation theory predicts that given this speech style difference, good decoders would make more favorable interpretations of a fast request that converged toward their faster speech rate; whereas poor decoders would make more favorable interpretations of a slow request that converged toward their slower speech rate. Requests receiving more favorable evaluations should result in greater compliance, because compliance with requests for help was predicted to follow an identification process. An experiment involving 168 participants confirmed this explanation. Good decoders spoke faster than poor decoders. Moreover, good decoders rated the fast request as more intimate and immediate, while poor decoders rated the slow request as more intimate and immediate. Good decoders, in turn, complied more with the fast request, which they rated more intimate and immediate, whereas poor decoders complied more with the slow request, which they rated more intimate and immediate.     

Improving compliance with medical fitness to drive reviews: The role of behaviourally-optimised letters

To manage the increased crash risk posed by drivers with medical conditions and impairments, many licensing authorities ask high-risk drivers to undergo medical fitness to drive assessments. Maximising drivers’ compliance and satisfaction with these assessments is an ongoing challenge for these authorities. This study tested whether drivers’ compliance and satisfaction with a licensing authority’s request to provide a medical report could be improved by incorporating two applied behaviour change principles – simplified messaging and procedural fairness – into the authority’s request letter. Drivers undergoing medical review (N = 876) were assigned to receive either a standard request letter currently used by the authority, or a revised letter that incorporated simplified messaging and procedural fairness amendments. Drivers who received the revised letter were significantly more likely to submit a medical report by the due date. Additionally, of the drivers who submitted the report, those who received the revised letter submitted the report an average of four days faster than those who received the standard letter. These findings demonstrate that optimising letters using behavioural principles can improve compliance with licensing authorities’ requests, resulting in substantial time and cost savings for licensing authorities, possible road safety benefits, and potential reductions in the number of licences suspended for failure to provide a report.     

Compliance without pressure: Some further data on the foot-in-the-door technique

A replication of the Freedman and Fraser (1966) “foot-in-the-door” technique was attempted in which subjects were exposed to one of two prior requests and were then asked to comply with a larger request. The results showed that subjects receiving prior requests complied with the larger request significantly more often than did control subjects. The mechanism by which the technique operates was discussed.     

A PILOT STUDY OF NATURALLY OCCURRING HIGH‐PROBABILITY REQUEST SEQUENCES IN HOSTAGE NEGOTIATIONS

In the current study, the audiotapes from three hostage‐taking situations were analyzed. Hostage negotiator requests to the hostage taker were characterized as either high or low probability. The results suggested that hostage‐taker compliance to a hostage negotiator's low‐probability request was more likely when a series of complied‐with high‐probability requests preceded the low‐probability request. However, two of the three hostage‐taking situations ended violently; therefore, the implications of the high‐probability request sequence for hostage‐taking situations should be assessed in future research.     

The relationship of moral judgment, self-awareness, and sex to complicance behavior

Sixty male and sixty female college students, representing three of Kohlberg's stages of moral judgment, were exposed to a complicance situation in which their personal count of a series of metronome clicks was contradicted by a unanimous group. Group differences were either one or two steps from veridical. For half of the subjects self-awareness was experimentally increased. The results indicated that subjects in moral judgment Stages 3 and 4 complied significantly more than Stage 5 subjects. The self-awareness manipulation produced a complex pattern of results in the form of a three way interaction with moral judgment and type of compliance. Finally, sex differences in compliance behavior were significant, with females complying more than males. The results were discussed in terms of a cognition-behavior relationship.     

A Relational Obligations Approach to the Foot-In-The-Mouth Effect

An earlier study by Howard (1990) employed a "foot-in-the-mouth" approach (FITM) to increase the frequency of compliance with charitable requests. This effect was explained through consistency theory: People are more likely to comply with a request for a charitable donation if the person making the request first asks the potential donor how he or she is feeling, and then acknowledges the donor's response. The potential donor was expected to behave in accordance with his or her publicly stated feeling-state. However, some of the compliance in Howard's study may be attributable to an increased perception of relationship between the requester and donor (Roloff, 1987). Not only was the donor required to be consistent with his or her publicly stated feeling-state, but the donor had to behave in a manner consistent with the relationship implied by the requester. Two studies examined this possibility. The first study found a FITM approach that manipulated only relational obligations consistency resulted in higher rates of compliance than both the standard and feeling-state FITM approach. A second study examined the mechanism for this increased compliance. Results show that although both FITM approaches produced more positive relational perceptions between the requester and donor than the standard approach, the relational obligations approach produced more positive relational perceptions than did the other FITM approach.     

Reexamining Bases of Power From an Attributional Perspective1

Four replications of Rodrigues' (1995) study on genotypical similarities of Raven's (1965) power taxonomy are reported. Rodrigues found that compliance induced by reward, informational, and referent power is perceived as more internal and controllable than compliant behavior induced by expert, legitimate, and coercive power. The replications included 4 new aspects: (a) subjects are highly ego-involved in the hypothetical situation presented; (b) subjects are actors rather than observers; (c) subjects are from another culture; and (d) subjects are asked to play the role of a supervisor and apply sanctions to the person who complied as a result of the influence attempt, thus affording an empirical testing of Weiner's (1995) thought-affect-action sequence when responsibility judgments are made. The results of all 5 studies, with a total of 570 subjects, support Rodrigues' (1995) findings and confirm Weiner's (1995) hypothesis     

Touch,awareness of touch,and compliance with a request

In certain situations it has been shown that touch has a positive effect on the compliance with a request expressed by a stranger. However, the difference between the effect of touch on request compliance between people who had noticed and those who had not noticed this contact has never been taken into account. In this experiment a female confederate asked 227 women to answer a questionnaire. When asking for their collaboration the forearm was or was not touched for a brief period of 1 to 2 seconds. Analysis showed that touch was associated with significantly higher compliance to the request but no difference was found between subjects who had noticed the tactual contact and subjects who had not noticed.     

The Applicability of the Door-in-the Face Technique when Established Behavioral Customs Exist

The applicability of the door-in-the-face technique was tested in a monetary donation context where established behavioral standards exist, and where the target person has standards by which to judge the legitimacy of the solicitor's demand. Based on the proposition that exaggerated initial requests might discredit the solicitor and thereby halt the give-and-take process, it was expected that (a) with legitimate initial requests, the probability of compliance with a request would be greater when preceded by a larger request than if presented alone; and that (b) with illegitimate initial requests, the probability of compliance with a second request would be smaller when preceded by a larger request than if presented alone. On the national collection day for the Association for the Rehabilitation of the Mentally Handicapped, 400 subjects were asked to contribute IL 10, 15, or 20. In the experimental groups, these amounts were preceded with requests for larger sums which were judged previously by a pretest to be considered legitimate or illegitimate. In the control groups, subjects were asked to contribute the same amounts, but no larger amounts were first requested. The replicability of the door-in-the-face technique has been proven with requests for which established customs exist. However, the technique was only effective with legitimate initial requests. With initial requests that were previously judged as unreasonable, the technique had a "boomerang effect" and suppressed compliance.     

THE CLASS SPECIFIC EFFECTS OF COMPLIANCE TRAINING WITH “DO” AND “DON'T” REQUESTS: ANALOGUE ANALYSIS AND CLASSROOM APPLICATION

Two experiments are reported in which the relationship between compliance with “do” and “don't” requests was examined with developmentally disabled children. In Experiment 1, a multiple baseline design across subjects with counterbalanced treatment conditions was used to evaluate a compliance training program composed of four phases: (a) baseline, during which no consequences were delivered for compliance, (b) reinforcement for compliance with one targeted “do” request, (c) reinforcement for compliance with one targeted “don't” request, and (d) follow-up with reinforcement on a variable ratio schedule for compliance with any “do” or “don't” request. Results of probes conducted before and after training within each condition indicated that generalized compliance occurred only with requests of the same type as the target exemplar (“do” or “don't”). In Experiment 2, these results were replicated in a classroom setting. Following collection of baseline probe data on student compliance, a teacher training program was successfully implemented to increase reinforcement of compliance first with one “do” and subsequently with one “don't” request of a target student. Results of multiple baseline probes across “do” and “don't” requests indicated that the teacher generalized and maintained reinforcement of compliance with other requests of the same type and to other students, with a resulting increase in student compliance with the type of requests reinforced. The impact of treatment on both teacher and student behavior was socially validated via consumer ratings. Implications of these findings with respect to response class formation and compliance training programs are discussed.     

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.     

Disobeying an Illegitimate Request in a Democratic or Authoritarian System

Crimes of obedience in the form of illegal or immoral acts committed in response to orders from authority occur in many contexts. In particular, under some circumstances of threats, people can easily accept restrictions upon democratic procedures. Recent studies have underlined the role of legitimacy in understanding the authority relationship and the importance of evaluating the legitimacy of the request rather than the legitimacy of the authority in preventing the rise of authoritarianism. The purpose of this study was to verify if people respond differently when an illegitimate request is put forward by a democratic or an authoritarian authority. The results on 224 subjects confirmed that people tend to be more obedient when they perceive authorities as democratic, notwithstanding the legitimacy of their requests.     

Territoriality and Compliance: The Influence of Gender and Location on Willingness to Sign Petitions

Abstract

The effects of territory type and gender on compliance behavior were examined in a field experiment. Undergraduate students (N = 180; 90 men, 90 women) were approached by male experimenters in primary and public territories and in nonterritories (mobile individuals outdoors) and were asked to sign either an unappealing counterattitudinal petition or a petition more neutral in content. It was hypothesized that subjects would comply with the negative request most often in the nonterritory condition, least often in the primary territories, and an intermediate amount in public territories and that territory type would not affect compliance with the neutral request. The results fully supported all the hypotheses. In addition, an unexpected interaction occurred between territory type and sex of subject for the unappealing petition: Although female behavior paralleled male behavior in central and public territories, women in nonterritories resisted compliance more than men did.     

Discounting Attributions and Multiple Determinants

The discounting principle in attribution theory was considered a well-established phenomenon until recently, when both the empirical and theoretical basis for discounting have been questioned. Many instances of strong discounting have used measures that constrain explanations, such as a forced-choice and bipolar measures. Two studies were performed simulating Thibaut and Riecken's study of attributions for target persons' compliance to a request, which used a forced-choice measure. In the present studies, a range of measures were used. Responses of two samples of Oxford students and one sample of Oxford teachers indicate that multiple causation was perceived and subjects did not greatly discount either of two relevant causes, but there was nonetheless a compensatory relation between the causes. The results also indicate that the attributions were affected by the social categories of the target person and the subjects.     

Compliance with requests by children with autism: the impact of sentence type

This study assesses the extent to which children with autism understand requests performed with grammatically non-imperative sentence types. Ten children with autism were videotaped in naturalistic conditions. Four grammatical sentence types were distinguished: imperative, declarative, interrogative and sub-sentential. For each category, the proportion of requests complied with significantly exceeded the proportion of requests not complied with, and no difference across categories was found. These results show that children with autism do not rely exclusively on the linguistic form to interpret an utterance as a request.     

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.     

Low-ball and compliance to a request: an application in a field setting

The low-ball refers to a compliance technique in which a demand of someone to agree to a request is followed by telling the person the real cost of the request. The number of people who maintain their first decision is larger than the number in the condition in which the real cost of the request is stated prior to the initial compliance. Researches in this paradigm traditionally included a request addressed by a professor to students but was never tested between strangers. So, an experiment was carried out in which people were solicited to keep a dog (8 kg) on a lead until a male confederate returned from a visit to someone in a hospital. In low-ball condition, the confederate told the subject who agreed to the request that it would take 30 min., whereas in the control condition the confederate gave this information when stating his request. Analysis showed that low-ball technique leads people to maintain their first decision.