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Journal ol Personality and Social Psychology 1966, Vol. 4, No. 2, 155-
COMPLIANCE WITHOUT PRESSURE:
THE FOOT-IN-THE-DOOR TECHNIQUE 3
JONATHAN L. FREEDMAN AND SCOTT C. FRASER 2 Stanford University
2 experiments were conducted to test the proposition that once someone has agreed to a small request he is more likely to comply with a larger request. The 1st study demonstrated this effect when the same person made both requests. The 2nd study extended this to the situation in which different people made the 2 requests. Several experimental groups were run in an effort to explain these results, and possible explanations arc discussed.
How can a person be induced to do some- thing he would rather not do? This question is relevant to practically every phase of social life, from stopping at a traffic light to stop- ping smoking, from buying Brand X to buy- ing savings bonds, from supporting the March of Dimes to supporting the Civil Rights Act. One common way of attacking the problem is to exert as much pressure as possible on the reluctant individual in an effort to force him to comply. This technique has been the focus of a considerable amount of experi- mental research. Work on attitude change, conformity, imitation, and obedience has all tended to stress the importance of the degree of external pressure. The prestige of the communicator (Kelman & Hovland, 1953), degree of discrepancy of the communication (Hovland & Pritzker, 19S7), size of the group disagreeing with the subject (Asch, 1951), perceived power of the model (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1963), etc., are the kinds of variables that have been studied. This im- pressive body of work, added to the research on rewards and punishments in learning, has produced convincing evidence that greater external pressure generally leads to greater compliance with the wishes of the experi- menter. The one exception appears to be situations involving the arousal of cognitive dissonance in which, once discrepant behavior has been elicited from the subject, the greater (^1) The authors are grateful to Evelyn Bless for
assisting in the running of the second experiment reported here. These studies were supported in part by Grant GS-196 from the National Science Founda- tion. The first study was conducted while the junior author was supported by an NSF undergraduate summer 2 fellowship. Now at New York University.
the pressure that was used to elicit the be- havior, the less subsequent change occurs (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). But even in this situation one critical element is the amount of external pressure exerted. Clearly, then, under most circumstances the more pressure that can be applied, the more likely it is that the individual will comply. There are, however, many times when for ethical, moral, or practical reasons it is diffi- cult to apply much pressure when the goal is to produce compliance with a minimum of apparent pressure, as in the forced-compliance studies involving dissonance arousal. And even when a great deal of pressure is pos- sible, it is still important to maximize the compliance it produces. Thus, factors other than external pressure are often quite critical in determining degree of compliance. What are these factors? Although rigorous research on the problem is rather sparse, the fields of advertising, propaganda, politics, etc., are by no means devoid of techniques designed to produce compliance in the absence of external pres- sure (or to maximize the effectiveness of the pressure that is used, which is really the same problem). One assumption about compliance that has often been made either explicitly or implicitly is that once a person has been induced to comply with a small request he is more likely to comply with a larger de- mand. This is the principle that is commonly referred to as the foot-in-lhc-door or grada- tion technique and is reflected in the saying that if you "give them an inch, they'll take a mile." It was, for example, supposed to be one of the basic techniques upon which the Korean brainwashing tactics were based 195
196 JONATHAN L. FRKKDMAN AND SCOTT C.
(Schcin, Schneier, & Barker, 1961), and, in a somewhat different sense, one basis for Nazi propaganda during 1Q40 (Brunei", 1941). It also appears to be implicit in many advertising campaigns which attempt to in- duce the consumer to do anything relating to the product involved, even sending back a card saying he does not want the product. The most relevant piece of experimental evidence comes from a study of conformity done by Deutsch and Gerard (19SS). Some subjects were faced with incorrect group judgments first in a series in which the stimuli were not present during the actual judging and then in a series in which they were pres- ent, while the order of the memory and visual series was reversed for other subjects. For both groups the memory series produced more conformity, and when the memory series came first there was more total conformity to the group judgments. It seems likely that this order effect occurred because, as the authors suggest, once conformity is elicited at all it is more likely to occur in the future. Although this kind of conformity is probably somewhat different from compliance as described above, this finding certainly lends some support to the foot-in-the-door idea. The present re- search attempted to provide a rigorous, more direct test of this notion as it applies to compliance and to provide data relevant to several alternative ways of explaining the effect. EXPERIMENT I
The basic paradigm was to ask some subjects (Performance condition) to comply first with a small request and then 3 days later with a larger, related request. Other subjects (One- Contact condition) were asked to comply only with the large request. The hypothesis was that more subjects in the Performance condi- tion than in the One-Contact condition would comply with the larger request. Two additional conditions were included in an attempt to specify the essential difference between these two major conditions. The Per- formance subjects were asked to perform a small favor, and, if they agreed, they did it. The question arises whether the act of agree- ing itself is critical or whether actually carry- ing it out was necessary. To assess this a
third group of subjects (Agree-Only) was asked the first request, but, even if they agreed, they did not carry it out. Thus, they were identical to the Performance group ex- cept that they were not given the opportunity of performing the request. Another difference between the two main conditions was that at the time of the larger request the subjects in the Performance con- dition were more familiar with the experi- menter than were the other subjects. The Performance subjects had been contacted twice, heard his voice more, discovered that the quesions were not dangerous, and so on. It is possible that this increased familiarity would serve to decrease the fear and suspicion of a strange voice on the phone and might accordingly increase the likelihood of the sub- jects agreeing to the larger request. To con- trol for this a fourth condition was run (Familiarization) which attempted to give the subjects as much familiarity with the ex- perimenter as in the Performance and Agree- Only conditions with the only difference being that no request was made. The major prediction was that more sub- jects in the Performance condition would agree to the large request than in any of the other conditions, and that the One- Contact condition would produce the least compliance. Since the importance of agree- ment and familiarity was essentially un- known, the expectation was that the Agree- Only and Familiarization conditions would produce intermediate amounts of compliance.
METHOD
The prediction slated above was tested in a field experiment in which housewives were asked to allow a survey team of five or six men to come into their homes for 2 hours to classify the household products they used. This large request was made under f o u r different conditions: after an initial contact in which the subject had been asked to answer a few questions about the kinds of soaps she used, and the questions were actually asked (Performance condition) ; after an identical contact in which the questions were not actually asked (Agree-Only con- dition) ; after an initial contact in which no request was made (Familiarization condition) ; or after no initial contact (One-Contact condition). The depend- ent measure was simply whether or not the subject agreed to the large request.
198 JONATHAN F K K K U M A N A N D SCOTT C. FUASKU
queutly be more likely to comply with a larger request than would subjects who were asked only the larger request (One-Contact condition). As may be seen in Table 1, the results support the prediction. Over 50% of the subjects in the Performance condition agreed to the larger request, while less than 2 <3°/f) of the One-Contact condition agreed to it. Thus it appears that obtaining compli- ance with a small request does tend to in- crease subsequent compliance. The question is what aspect of the initial contact produces this effect. One possibility is that the effect was produced merely by increased familiarity with the experimenter. The Familiarization control was included to assess the effect on compli- ance of two contacts with the same per- son. The group had as much contact with the experimenter as the Performance group, but no request was made during the first con- tact. As the table indicates, the Familiariza- tion group did not differ appreciably in amount of compliance from the One-Contact group, but was different from the Perform- ance group (x~ — 3.70, /J < .07). Thus, al- though increased familiarity may well lead to increased compliance, in the present situa- tion the differences in amount of familiarity apparently were not great enough to produce any such increase; the effect that was ob- tained seems not to be due to this factor. Another possibility is that the critical factor producing increased compliance is simply agreeing to the small request (i.e., carrying it out may not be necessary). The Agree-Only condition was identical to the Performance condition except that in the former the subjects were not asked the ques- tions. The amount of compliance in this Agree-Only condition fell between the Per- formance and One-Contact conditions and was not significantly different from either of them. This leaves the effect of merely agree- ing somewhat ambiguous, but it suggests that the agreement alone may produce part of the effect. Unfortunately, it must be a d m i t t e d that neither of these control conditions is an en- tirely adequate test of the possibility it was designed to assess. Both conditions are in some way quite peculiar and may have made
a very different and extraneous impression on the subject than did the Performance con- dition. In one case, a housewife is asked to answer some questions and then is not asked them; in the other, some man calls to tell her about some organization she has never heard of. Now, by themselves neither of these events might produce very much suspicion. But, several days later, the same man calls and asks a very large favor. At this point it is not at all unlikely that many subjects think they are being manipulated, or in any case that something strange is going on. Any such reaction on the part of the subjects would naturally tend to reduce the amount of compliance in these conditions. Thus, although this first study demon- strates that an initial contact in which a re- quest is made and carried out increases com- pliance with a second request, the question of why and how the initial request produces this effect remains unanswered. In an attempt to begin answering this question and to ex- tend the results of the first study, a second experiment was conducted. There seemed to be several quite plausible ways in which the increase in compliance might have been produced. The first was simply some kind of commitment to or in- volvement with the particular person making the request. This might work, for example, as follows: The subject has agreed to the first request and perceives that the experi- menter therefore expects him also to agree to the second request. The subject thus feels obligated and does not want to disappoint the experimenter; he also feels that he needs a good reason for saying "no"—a better reason than he would need if he had never said "yes." This is just one line of causality—the particular process by which involvement with the experimenter operates might be quite dif- ferent, but the basic idea would be similar. The commitment is to the particular person. This implies that the increase in compliance due to the first contact should occur prima- rily when both requests are made by the same person. Another explanation in terms of involve- ment centers around the particular issue with which the requests arc concerned. Once the subject has taken some action in connection
COMPLIANCE WITHOUT PRESSURE 199
wilh an area of concern, bo it surveys, polili- cal activity, or highway safely, there is prob- ably a tendency lo become somewhat more concerned with the area. The subject begins thinking about it, considering its importance and relevance to him, and so on. This tends to make him more likely to agree to take further action in the same area when he is later asked to. To the extent that this is the critical factor, the initial contact should in- crease compliance only when both requests are related to the same issue or area of concern. Another way of looking at the situation is that the subject needs a reason to say "no." In our society it is somewhat difficult to refuse a reasonable request, particularly when it is made by an organization that is not trying to make money. In order to refuse, many people feel that they need a reason— simply not wanting to do it is often not in itself sufficient. The person can say to the requester or simply to himself that he does not believe in giving to charities or tipping or working for political parties or answering questions or posting signs, or whatever he is asked to do. Once he has performed a par- ticular task, however, this excuse is no longer valid for not agreeing to perform a similar task. Even if the first thing he did was trivial compared to the present request, he cannot say he never does this sort of thing, and thus one good reason for refusing is re- moved. This line of reasoning suggests that the similarity of the first and second requests in terms of the type of action required is an important factor. The more similar they are, the more the "matter of principle" argument is eliminated by agreeing to the first request, and the greater should be the increase in compliance. There arc probably many other mecha- nisms by which the initial request might pro- duce an increase in compliance. The second experiment was designed in part to test the notions described above, but its major pur- pose was to demonstrate the effect unequivo- cally. To this latter end it eliminated one of the important problems with the first study which was that when the experimenter made the second request he was not blind as to which condition the subjects were in. In this study the second request was always made
by someone other than the person who ma.de Ihe first request, and the second experimenter was blind as to what condition the subject was in. This eliminates the possibility that the experimenter exerted systematically dif- ferent amounts of pressure in different experi- mental conditions. If the effect of the first study were replicated, it would also rule out the relatively uninteresting possibility that the effect is due primarily to greater famili- arity or involvement with the particular person making the first request.
EXPERIMICNT II
The basic paradigm was quite similar to that of the first study. Experimental subjects were asked to comply with a small request and were later asked a considerably larger request, while controls were asked only the larger request. The first request varied along two dimensions. Subjects were asked either to put up a small sign or to sign a petition, and the issue was either safe driving or keep- ing California beautiful. Thus, there were four first requests: a small sign for safe driving or for beauty, and a petition for the two issues. The second request for all subjects was to install in their front lawn a very large sign which said "Drive Carefully." The four experimental conditions may be defined in terms of the similarity of the small and large requests along the dimensions of issue and task. The two requests were similar in both issue and task for the small-sign, safe-driving group, similar only in issue for the safe- driving-petition group, similar only in task for the small "Keep California Beautiful" sign group, and similar in neither issue nor task for the "Keep California Beautiful" petition group. The major expectation was that the three groups for which either the task or the issue were similar would show more compliance than the controls, and it was also felt that when both were similar there would prob- ably be the most compliance. The fourth condition (Different Issue-Different Task) was included primarily to assess the effect simply of the initial contact which, although it was not identical to the second one on either issue or task, was in many ways q u i t e
COMPLIANCE WITHOUT PRKSSUKIC 201
TAIJLE 2 J ' E K C K N T A G K oji' SUBJECTS C O M P L Y I N G w i r u LARGE REQUEST I N KXFKRISIF.M' J I
Issue-^1
Similar Different
Ta
jV 25 21
sk» — — Diileient 47.8* 47.4*
iV 23 19
One-Contact 16.7 (;V = 24)
Denotes relationship between first and second requests.
45% being the lowest degree of compliance
for any experimental condition. As expected,
those conditions in which the two requests
were similar in terms of either issue or task
produced significantly more compliance than
did the controls (x 2 's range from 3.67, p <.
to IS.01, p < .001). A somewhat unexpected
result is that the fourth condition, in which
the first request had relatively little in com-
mon with the second request, also produced
more compliance than the controls (x 2 —
3.40, p < .08). In other words, regardless of
whether or not the two requests are similar
in either issue or task, simply having the first
request tends to increase the likelihood that
the subject will comply with a subsequent,
larger request. And this holds even when the
two requests are made by different people
several weeks apart.
A second point of interest is a comparison
among the four experimental conditions. As
expected, the Same Issue-Same Task condi-
tion produced more compliance than any of
the other two-contact conditions, but the dif-
ference is not significant (^ 2!^ s range from 2.
to 2.9). If only those subjects who agreed to
the first request are considered, the same
pattern holds.
DISCUSSION
To summarize the results, the first study
indicated that carrying out a small request
increased the likelihood that the subject
would agree to a similar larger request made
by the same person. The second study showed
that this effect was quite strong even when
a different person made the larger request,
and Hie (wo requests were quite dissimilar.
How may these results be explained?
Two possibilities were outlined previously.
The matter-of-principle idea which centered
on the particular type of action was not sup-
ported by the data, since the similarity of
the tasks did not make an appreciable dif-
ference in degree of compliance. The notion
of involvement, as described previously, also
has difficulty accounting for some of the find-
ings. The basic idea was that once someone
has agreed to any action, no matter how
small, he tends to feel more involved than he
did before. This involvement may center
around the particular person making the first
request or the particular issue. This is quite
consistent with the results of the first study
(with the exception of the two control groups
which as discussed previously were rather
ambiguous) and with the Similar-Issue groups
in the second experiment. This idea of in-
volvement does not, however, explain the in-
crease in compliance found in the two groups
in which the first and second request did not
deal with the same issue.
It is possible that in addition to or instead
of this process a more general and diffuse
mechanism underlies the increase in compli-
ance. What may occur is a change in the
person's feelings about getting involved or
about taking action. Once he has agreed to
a request, his attitude may change. He 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 change in attitude could be
toward any aspect of the situation or toward
the whole business of saying "yes." The basic
idea is that the change in attitude need not
be toward any particular issue or person or
activity, but may be toward activity or com-
pliance in general. This would imply that an
increase in compliance would not depend upon
the two contacts being made by the same
person, or concerning the same issue or in-
volving the same kind of action. The simi-
larity could be much more general, such as
both concerning good causes, or requiring a
similar kind of action, or being made by
pleasant, attractive individuals.
It is not being suggested that this is the
202 JONATHAN I,. FKKKDMAN AND SCOTT C. FRASKR
only mechanism operating here. The idea of involvement, continues to be extremely plausi- ble, and there are probably a number of other possibilities. Unfortunately, the present studies offer no additional data with which to support or refute any of the possible explana- tions of the effect. These explanations thus remain simply descriptions of mechanisms which might produce an increase in compli- ance after agreement with a first request. Hopefully, additional research will test these ideas more fully and perhaps also specify other manipulations which produce an in- crease in compliance without an increase in external pressure. It should be pointed out that the present studies employed what is perhaps a very special type of situation. In all cases the re- quests were made by presumably nonprofit service organizations. The issues in the second study were deliberately noncontroversial, and it may be assumed that virtually all subjects initially sympathized with the objectives of safe driving and a beautiful California. This is in strong contrast to campaigns which are designed to sell a particular product, political candidate, or dogma. Whether the technique employed in this study would be successful in these other situations remains to be shown.
REFERENCES ASCII, S. E. Effects of group pressure upon t h e m o d i fication and distortion of judgments. In H. duct/.- kow (Ed.), Groups, leadership and men; research in human relations. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Press,
- Pp. 177-190. BANDURA, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. A comparative test of the status envy, social power, and second- ary reinforcement theories of idenlificalory learn- ing. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1963, 67, 527-534. BRUNEK, J. The dimensions of propaganda: German short-wave broadcasts to America. Journal oj Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1941, 36, 311-
DF.UTSCII, M., & GERARD, H. B. A study of norma- tive and informational social influences upon indi- vidual judgment. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1955, 51, 629-636. FESTINGER, L., & CARLSMITIT, J. Cognitive conse- quences of forced compliance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1959, 58, 203-210. HOVLAND, C. I., & PBITZKER, H. A. Extent of opin- ion change as a function of amount of change advocated. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psy- chology, 1957, 54, 257-261. KELMAN, H. C., & HOVLAND, C. I. "Reinstatement" of the communicator in delayed measurement of opinion change. Journal oj Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1953, 48, 327-335. SCHEIN, E. H., SCHNEIER, I., & BARKER, C. H. Co- ercive pressure. New York: Norton, 1961.
(Received August 2, 1965)
