Questions: Door-in-the-Face Technique and Reciprocity

Question 1

A charity asks volunteers for a 2-year commitment (refused), then asks the same people for a 1-day commitment. Compliance with the second request exceeds a control group who received only the 1-day request. What is the primary mechanism driving this effect?

• A. The 1-day request seems more reasonable by perceptual contrast with the 2-year request
• B. Participants feel committed to the charity after the initial interaction
• C. The requester's retreat from the large request creates a perceived concession that activates the norm of reciprocal concessions, generating a felt social obligation
• D. The initial request establishes the requester's authority and credibility, making the follow-up more persuasive

Answer: (C)

The door-in-the-face technique works through reciprocal concessions, not perceptual contrast. The requester absorbed a cost (backed down from their original ask), and social norms of fair exchange make the target feel obligated to reciprocate with a concession of their own. Option A (contrast) can contribute, but is not the primary mechanism — research shows the effect requires that the same person make both requests, which contrast alone would not predict.

Question 2

A researcher tests whether the door-in-the-face effect holds when Person A makes the large initial request and Person B (a different person, unknown to A) makes the smaller follow-up request. Compared to standard door-in-the-face, compliance with the smaller request will most likely be:

• A. Just as high, because the reciprocity norm operates independently of who made the initial request
• B. Higher, because the target feels doubly obligated after refusing two different requesters
• C. Similar to a control condition with no initial large request, because the concession norm requires the same requester to make both requests
• D. Lower than the control condition, because two separate requesters trigger suspicion

Answer: (C)

A key boundary condition of the door-in-the-face technique is that the same requester must make both requests. The mechanism is reciprocal concessions — the target perceives that the requester personally backed down, creating a social obligation to reciprocate. If a different person makes the second request, no concession has been made and no obligation is generated. Studies confirm that splitting the requests across requesters eliminates the effect.

Question 3

The door-in-the-face technique and the foot-in-the-door technique are mirror-image strategies that both ultimately work through the principle of reciprocity.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

The two techniques work through entirely different psychological mechanisms. Foot-in-the-door works through commitment and consistency: after agreeing to a small request, people feel motivated to behave consistently with their self-image as someone who supports this cause, making them more likely to comply with a larger follow-up request. Door-in-the-face works through reciprocal concessions. Knowing that the mechanisms differ is important for predicting when each technique will and will not work.

Question 4

In the door-in-the-face technique, compliance with the second request is driven primarily by the social obligation created by the requester's perceived concession, not by the intrinsic attractiveness or reasonableness of the second request itself.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

This is the key insight that separates door-in-the-face from simple contrast effects. The target may not find the second request particularly attractive — what drives compliance is the social accounting triggered by the sequence. Evidence: the effect disappears when the two requests are made by different people (social accounting requires a specific social partner), and when the concession is framed as scripted or manipulative rather than genuine.

Question 5

Why does the door-in-the-face technique fail when the second (smaller) request is made by a different person than the one who made the initial large request?

Model answer: The technique works by activating the norm of reciprocal concessions: when the requester backs down from their initial large request, the target experiences this as a personal concession — a cost the requester absorbed — and feels socially obligated to reciprocate by honoring the smaller request. If a different person makes the second request, no concession has occurred in the interaction. The target has no social debt to the second requester and therefore no felt obligation to comply. The reciprocity norm is interpersonally specific: it tracks what particular individuals have given and owed.

This boundary condition demonstrates that the mechanism is genuinely about reciprocal concessions rather than a simple contrast effect or general mood change. Perceptual contrast (the second request seeming small by comparison) would persist regardless of who makes it. The requester-dependency is the fingerprint of the reciprocity mechanism.