The effects of contrast upon compliance with socially undesirable requests in the foot-in-the-door paradigm

Abstract

The study sought to assess the effects of the degree of contrast between the initial and critical requests upon the rate of compliance in the foot-in-the-door paradigm. Subjects were randomly assigned to a high-contrast, low-contrast, or no-initial-request control condition. The critical request was presented either immediately or after an average of 8.5 days. It was found that the timing of the critical request failed to affect the rate of compliance. However, subjects in the low-contrast condition complied at a significantly higher rate than those in the high-contrast condition, although neither of the experimental conditions differed significantly from the control condition. The latter finding was discussed in terms of the inhibitory role of contrast upon compliance in the foot-in-the-door paradigm. © 1982, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.