Reciprocal Concessions Procedure for Inducing Compliance: The Door-in-the-Face Technique

Three experiments were conducted to test the effectiveness of a rejection-thenmoderation procedure for inducing compliance with a request for a favor. All three experiments included a condition in which a requester first asked for an extreme favor (which was refused to him) and then for a smaller favor. In each instance, this procedure produced more compliance with the smaller favor than a procedure in which the requester asked solely for the smaller favor. Additional control conditions in each experiment supported the hypothesis that the effect is mediated by a rule for reciprocation of concessions. Several advantages to the use of the rejection-then-moderation procedure for producing compliance are discussed. The foot-in-the-door technique has been investigated by Freedman and Eraser (1966) as a procedure for inducing compliance with a request for a favor. They demonstrated that obtaining a person's compliance with a small request substantially increases the likelihood of that person's compliance with a subsequent, larger request. Freedman and Fraser suggest that the mediator of the foot-in-thedoor effect is a shift in the self-perception of the benefactor. After performing or agreeing to perform an initial favor, a person "may become, in his own eyes, the kind of person who does this sort of thing, who agrees to requests made by strangers, who takes action on things he believes in, who cooperates with good causes. . . . The basic idea is that the change in attitude need not be toward any particular person or activity, but may be toward activity or compliance in general." Thus, one effective way to obtain a favor is to begin by making a minimal first request which is sure to produce compliance and then to advance to a larger favor (the one which was desired from the outset). It may well be, however, that an equally effective method for getting a favor done involves the exact opposite procedure. What would be the result of making an extreme first request which is sure