The foot in the door technique: an effective way to persuade

Imagine that you find yourself in this situation: someone knocks on your door to ask you for a donation for a charity that fights poverty. It may be that at that moment you tell him no, that you have no money, and close the door on him.

Now, imagine that the same situation occurs, only with a small difference: this time, when you open the door for them, instead of asking for money they give you a pin with a message of solidarity. They ask you to wear it for a week to make society aware of the importance of fighting urban poverty.

Two weeks go by and the same members of the charity come back to you, this time to ask for a donation. It is quite likely that in this scenario you will. have applied with you the foot in the door technique. Let's find out what it is.

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What is the foot in the door technique?

The foot in the door technique is a persuasion strategy widely used in all kinds of contexts where you want to sell or ask for something. Given its psychosocial implication, this technique has been the object of study in social psychology, discipline in which it has aroused great interest judging by the multiple investigations that have addressed.

The name of this technique refers to the classic situation where a salesperson puts a foot in the door, preventing it from closing., as a first step to sell your product or service.

According to the definition given by Beaman's team (1983), the foot in the door is a technique that consists of ask someone for a small favor from whom we intend to obtain something more. The situation begins with an inexpensive behavior in a context of free choice, thus assuring us of its affirmative answer. Subsequently, that person is asked for a related favor, of greater magnitude, which is actually what we are interested in achieving.

This technique implies that if a person agrees to perform a small action, later it will be more prone to perform a related action of a higher nature, an action that he would not have done previously. That is, it implies that a person accepts a small inexpensive request, which will make them more likely to accept a larger request later.

The main factors that cause subsequent behavior of greater magnitude to be performed are commitment and consistency. The individuals have agreed to engage in the initial conduct, voluntarily, and this motivates them to more easily accept a later request that goes in the same direction despite being a bit more expensive.

For example, if we have positioned ourselves in favor of an idea, it will be easier for us to commit to actions related to it. In this way we maintain an internal coherence, with ourselves, and external, facing others. Added to this, the effectiveness of this technique is greater when the following conditions are met:

• The commitment is public
• The person has publicly elected it
• The first commitment assumed has been costly

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The Freedman and Fraser Experiment (1966)

The foot-in-the-door technique is so classic that it's hard to know exactly who invented and first used it. What we can know is who were the first to investigate it from social psychology. The first study on this strategy was conducted at Stanford University in 1966, by Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser. His research raised the following question: How can you get a person to do something he would rather not do?

The first task of his experiment was to check whether unknown people, who would act as subjects experimental, they agreed to receive in their home individuals who were doing a study on pharmaceutical products. cleaning. These individuals would be in charge of inspecting the brands and use of the products of each household that allowed them to enter. Some of these experimental subjects were previously given a small telephone survey to obtain information on what type of cleaning products they used.

Freedman and Fraser found that those who had passed the previous telephone survey they were 135% more likely to accept the request to receive the professionals at home compared to those who had not.

In the second part of the experiment these researchers went a little further, checking if the People would agree to put up a big, ugly road safety sign in their backyard. House. Some of them had previously been asked to place a small sticker on their windows or doors promoting environmental protection or safe driving.

Freedman and Fraser double-checked that those who had previously placed these stickers were more likely to agree to put the sign in their yards. Only 17% of the group that had not been asked to wear stickers agreed to put up the poster, while 55% of the group that had been asked to wear stickers agreed to put up the poster.

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Why does this technique succeed in persuading?

One of the most used explanations to explain the effect of this technique is related to the ideas of self-perception and consistency. Daryl Bem's self-perception theory states that when people do not feel safe about their attitude about an event or situation about which they have no previous experience, they tend to draw conclusions about their attitude by observing the actions they have done to the respect. That is, he maintains that people infer their personality from their own behaviors.

Based on this theory, the case of the billboard experiment, who had previously agreed to use stickers with vindictive messages had self-perceived themselves as more committed to this cause. This had motivated them to agree to put up a sign in their garden about road safety to feel in agreement with their actions. That is, the participants carried out this action more likely to be consistent with the perception they had of themselves at that time.

Besides, it's the relationship that is created between the person who persuades and the persuaded. Whoever has been persuaded feels obliged not to fail in a future commitment that has been formed through the acceptance of the first demands. The persuaded person feels involved in the cause and finds it more difficult to reject later demands.

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His relationship with sects

As a persuasion strategy that it is, the foot in the door technique has a strong relationship with sects. The first contact of law enforcement organizations is often attendance at small meetings. Later, a donation or small gesture is requested. Having already taken the first steps, however small they may be, we are more likely to commit to larger actions later..

Among these actions we can find behaviors such as dedicating weekly hours to the organization, giving more and more money, donating high-value goods... In the most extreme cases, the followers are forced to perform sexual services or even to participate in collective suicides, doing so believing that they do so completely voluntarily despite the fact that they are being manipulated as puppets

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Final reflection

The foot in the door technique is a persuasion strategy that, although it seems intrusive, it is very effective due to its subtlety, which is why it is widely used in marketing, sales and advertising. It is a way of persuading without pressing, achieving very beneficial results for those who use it.

It is highly used daily. For example, when they call us on the phone and ask us "Do you have internet?" and we answer yes, we predispose ourselves to continue listening. The next question is usually “Would you like to pay less?” and, if we answer affirmatively again, we fall into their trap. They have just put their foot in the door, and they will continue to try to see if we say yes to their offers or services.

Now that we know about this technique, it can help us avoid falling into both the marketing strategies of companies and the methods of sects. Learning to say no and detect the manipulation techniques used by these organizations is essential to prevent them from getting everything they want from us, and on top of that they make us believe that we have been free from choose it.

A brief and succinct “yes” to an initial question can give way to a whole barrage of questions and demands in which it will cost us more and more to reject what they want from us. So the next time something is offered to us, we should think twice.