Questions: Social Influence and Compliance Techniques

Question 1

A charity worker asks you to sign a short online petition for an environmental cause, which you do. A week later, the same charity asks for a $100 donation. Research predicts you are more likely to donate than if asked for $100 directly. Which principle best explains this?

• A. Reciprocity — you feel obligated to the charity since they reached out to you first
• B. Scarcity — the limited campaign window creates urgency to act
• C. Consistency motivation — signing the petition led you to self-identify as someone who supports the cause, making refusal feel inconsistent with that identity
• D. Social proof — seeing others sign the petition increased your donation likelihood

Answer: (C)

This is the foot-in-the-door technique, which exploits consistency motivation. By agreeing to the small request, you implicitly self-labeled as an environmental supporter. When the larger request arrives, turning it down would feel inconsistent with that self-concept. Reciprocity is the mechanism behind door-in-the-face (not foot-in-the-door), so option A is the most tempting wrong answer — but the charity hasn't done you a favor, they've gotten a commitment from you.

Question 2

A salesperson initially quotes a price far above your budget. When you decline, they immediately offer a much lower price — still above competitors, but which you feel some pull to accept. What technique and mechanism is operating?

• A. Foot-in-the-door; your initial refusal creates a commitment to appearing consistent
• B. Door-in-the-face; the price reduction feels like a concession on the salesperson's part, triggering reciprocity pressure to concede in return
• C. Social proof; you assume others paid the higher price, making the lower offer seem like a deal
• D. Authority; the salesperson's expertise makes the offer feel trustworthy

Answer: (B)

Door-in-the-face works by presenting an extreme first request (the inflated price) that gets refused, then retreating to the target request (still-high price). The retreat from large to small is perceived as a concession, which triggers the reciprocity norm: they gave something up, so you feel social pressure to give something up in return — by accepting the lower offer. Crucially, this works even when both parties know the original price was inflated.

Question 3

Simply naming a compliance technique — telling yourself 'that's door-in-the-face' — measurably reduces its effectiveness.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

The techniques work largely because they operate outside conscious awareness, exploiting heuristics that run automatically. When you name the technique, you bring the mechanism into conscious scrutiny, which disrupts the automatic social response. This is why education about influence principles is itself a practical countermeasure — not just academic knowledge.

Question 4

Compliance techniques like foot-in-the-door and door-in-the-face are primarily effective when the person using them is deliberately and consciously trying to manipulate the target.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

These techniques are effective whether or not the requester is acting consciously or strategically. Salespeople and fundraisers often use them out of habit or training without deliberate intent to manipulate. The techniques work because they activate genuine psychological mechanisms (consistency motivation, reciprocity norms) in the target — the requester's internal intent does not determine effectiveness.

Question 5

What is the key psychological difference between how the foot-in-the-door and door-in-the-face techniques achieve compliance, and why does each approach work?

Model answer: Foot-in-the-door works through consistency motivation: a small initial commitment leads the person to self-identify in a way that makes refusing the larger request feel inconsistent. Door-in-the-face works through reciprocity: an extreme first request is refused, then the requester 'concedes' to a smaller target request — the concession triggers a felt obligation to reciprocate by also conceding. The two techniques exploit opposite sequences (small-then-large vs. large-then-small) but each activates a genuine and ordinarily adaptive social norm.

Understanding the distinct mechanisms clarifies why the same situation calls for different techniques. If you need someone to commit to an identity or cause, FITD is more apt. If you need to extract a concession that will feel reasonable by contrast, DITF is the tool. The shared feature is that neither works by rational persuasion — both route around deliberate evaluation.