A Rock or a Hard Place: The Foot‐in‐the‐Face Technique for Inducing Compliance Without Pressure1

Situations in which the formulation of a target request is preceded by another request are a frequent field of research for social psychologists. So far, however, increased compliance with the target request has been found in conditions in which the initial request was either easier than the target request and was fulfilled (i.e., foot‐in‐the‐door technique) or more difficult and was rejected (i.e., door‐in‐the‐face technique). In the series of 3 field studies presented in this article, it is shown that increased compliance with the final request can also be observed when the initial request has more or less the same degree of difficulty as the final request.