In 1975, Robert Cialdini from Arizona State University tested flipping the foot-in-the-door technique on its head. He called his new approach the door-in-the-face technique. In his experiment, Cialdini approached people on a university campus and asked whether they would volunteer for two hours at the local youth detention centre. Less than 17% agreed. Next, he approached a different sample of people with a more extreme appeal - would they volunteer for two hours a week for the next two years? It was such a preposterous request that everyone declined. However, Cialdini didn’t stop there with the second sample of people. He then made another request - the same one that he had previously asked the first group. Would they give up two hours of their time to help on a single afternoon? This time, 50% agreed. People were almost three times more likely to comply if they had previously been asked to make a more sizeable commitment.
