The Foot-in-The-Door Phenomenon

                Can we not all recall times when, after agreeing to help out with a project or to join an organization, we eventually ended up far more involved than we ever intended, vowing that in the future we would say no to such requests?

 

                How does this happen? Experiments suggest that if you want people to do a big favor for you, a good technique is to get them to do a small favor first. In the best-known demonstration of this foot-in-the-door principle, Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser (1966) found that after complying with a small request (for example, to sign a safe-driving petition), California homemakers were three times more likely to comply later with a bigger request to place an ugly “Drive Carefully” sign in their front yards than were women had not first been approached for the small favor.

                Other researchers have confirmed Freedman and Fraser’s finding (DeJong, 1979). Several of these studies have tried to elicit altruistic acts, such as contributing to a charity. For example, Patricia Pliner and her collaborators (1974) found 46 percent of Toronto suburbanites willing to contribute to the Cancer Society when approached directly. Others, asked a day ahead to wear a lapel pin publicizing the drive (which all agreed to do), were nearly twice as likely to donate when the Cancer Society came calling.

                However, the seductive power of the foot-in-the-door phenomenon has limits. When the behavior is costly to us, such as giving blood when we have never before done so, our simply agreeing to display a publicity poster for the upcoming blood drive seems not to markedly increase our later willingness to donate (Cialdini & Ascani, 1976; Foss & Dempsey, 1979). But when we agree to a series of escalating commitments, we will sometimes consent to a very substantial request. Shalom Schwartz (1970) of the University of Wisconsin was pleasantly surprised to find that of 144 blood donors he invited to be on call as bone marrow donors (requiring an extraction procedure under general anesthesia with subsequent soreness), 59 percent agreed. Schwartz surmised that his procedure of escalating commitments had produced a “momentum of compliance.” All 144 had first agreed to give blood and, when approached in the canteen after donating, had further agreed to leave their seats and talk with the interviewer. After the interviewer explained the procedure and the need, he simply asked the people to permit their already donated blood to be tested to determine whether their type of bone marrow was currently needed. Ninety-five percent of them agreed to the test. Then the interviewer explained, “Carrying out these tests is a pretty complicated and expensive business for us in the lab, so we don’t want to go ahead with them unless we know there is at least a 50/50 chance you will consider donating marrow if you turn out to be compatible.” Eighty-three percent of the initial group now indicated there was a 50-50 chance that they would donate. Only after making these commitments were they asked if they would join “a pool of people willing to be on call should they be needed to donate marrow.”

                Note that in all these experiments the initial compliance—signing a petition, wearing a lapel pin, agreeing to a blood test—was voluntary, never coerced by threat or bribe. We will see again and again that when people bind themselves to public behaviors and perceive these acts to be their own doing, they come to believe more strongly in what they have done. Why does this happen? The answer is not entirely clear. What, for instance, produces the foot-in-the-door effect? One possibility is that the initial act affects the person’s attitude toward such action. If this occurs, then shouldn’t we expect the greatest compliance when the small request corresponds closely to the large request?

                Robert Cialdini and his collaborators (1978) demonstrated the powerful effect of a commitment that is similar to the desired action. They experimented with the low-ball technique, a tactic reportedly used by some new-car dealers. After the customer agrees to buy a new car because of its extremely good price and begins completing the sales forms, the salesperson removes the price advantage by charging for options the customer thought were included, or by checking with the boss who disallows the deal because “we’d be losing money.” Folklore has it hat more customers will stick with their purchase, even at the higher price, than would have agreed if the full price had been revealed at the outset. Cialdini and his collaborators found that this technique does indeed work. For example, when introductory psychology students were invited to participate in an experiment at 7:00A.M., only 24 percent showed up. But if they first agreed to participate without knowing the time and only then were asked if they would participate at 7:00A.M., 53 percent came. New experiments with University of Missouri-Columbia students by Jerry Burger and Richard Petty (1981) indicate that the low-ball technique is effective partly because once a commitment has been made, one feels obligated to the requester.

                An even more popular explanation for the foot-in-the-door phenomenon presumes a change not in the person’s attitudes, but in the person’s self-image (DeJong, 1981; Rittle, 1981). To paraphrase Freedman and Fraser, after Melinda signs the safe-driving petition, she may become, in her own eyes, a person who agrees to requests made by strangers, who takes action on things she believes in, who helps a good cause. If this “self-perception” explanation is correct, then shouldn’t people who refuse an initial request be less likely to comply with a subsequent request, assuming they now feel more like nondoers? Such is precisely what Mark Snyder and Michael Cunningham (1975) found. When Minneapolis residents were asked if they would be willing to participate in a thirty-question survey, 33 percent agreed to do so. Others first received a preliminary call from someone else, asking if they would participate in an eight-question survey. Nearly all said yes, and when later the actual survey taker called and indicated the survey would be thirty questions, 52 percent were still willing to participate. A third group of people were initially asked if they would be willing to answer a fifty-question survey. Most refused, and thus, when a survey taker called with the thirty-question survey, only 22 percent were willing to participate.

                The foot-in-the-door phenomenon is well worth being aware of so that we won’t be naively vulnerable to it. Someone trying to seduce us, financially, politically, or sexually, usually will try to create a momentum of compliance. As we shall see, great evils sometimes result from the corrupting effects of gradually escalating commitments. Doing a small evil act makes the next evil act easier. To paraphrase another of La Rochefoucauld’s Maxims (1665), it is not so difficult to find one who has never succumbed to a given temptation as to find one who has succumbed only once.

                Marketing researchers have found that this principle works even when we are aware of a profit motive; hence, salespeople are often trained to use it (Reingen & Kernam, 1977; Varela, 1971). Our harmless initial commitment—returning a card for more information and a free gift, simply agreeing to attend a meeting just to hear about an investment possibility—often starts us toward a larger commitment.

                The day after I wrote the last sentence above, a life insurance salesperson came to my office and offered a thorough analysis of our family’s financial situation. After finishing his presentation, he did not ask whether I wished to buy his life insurance, or even whether I wished to engage his free service. His question was instead a small foot-in-the-door, one carefully calculated to elicit my agreement: Did I think people should have such information about their financial situation?

                The foot-in-the-door is not always so harmless. This process of step-by-step commitment, of spiraling action and attitude, contributed to the escalation of the Vietnam war. Once difficult decisions were made and defended, our leaders seemed blind to information incompatible with their acts. They noticed and remembered comments that harmonized with their actions, but ignored or dismissed information that undermined their assumptions. As Ralph White (1971) put it, “There was a tendency, when actions were out of line with ideas, for decision-makers to align their ideas with their actions.”

[Foot-in-the-door phenomenon: The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.]

[Low-ball technique: A technique for getting people to agree to do something. People who have agreed to (but have not yet performed) an initial request are more likely to comply when the requester makes the request more costly than are people who are approached onlu with the costly request.]

(Source: Myers, David G. 1983. Social Psychology. United States of America: McGraw-Hill, Inc.) 

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