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The Psychological Reality of the Door-in-the-Face

It’s Helping, not Bargaining

University of Wisconsin-Madison, kjt{at}u.arizona.edu

James Price Dillard

University of Wisconsin-Madison, jdillard{at}facstaff.wisc.edu

Door-in-the-face (DITF) is a sequential request technique in which a source first makes a large request. Upon the receiver’s refusal, a smaller (target) request is made. DITF has been found to increase compliance with the target request compared to control conditions where only the target request is made. Despite its effectiveness, DITF lacks a consistently supported theoretical explanation. Two studies were conducted to determine whether people see DITF as a bargaining situation, consistent with the reciprocal concessions explanation, or as a helping situation, consistent with a social responsibility explanation. In Study 1, 78 participants judged the relevance of helping and bargaining items to four DITF interactions. In Study 2, 80 participants rated the similarity of a DITF interaction to four interactions that crossed situation (helping versus bargaining) with relationship (friend versus stranger). Results of both studies were consistent with a social responsibility explanation of DITF but inconsistent with reciprocal concessions.

Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Vol. 19, No. 1, 5-25 (2000)
DOI: 10.1177/0261927X00019001001


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