To comply or not comply: testing the self-perception explanation of the "foot-in-the-door" phenomenon.

A field experiment was conducted to test the self-perception explanation of the "foot-in-the-door" phenomenon of increased compliance with a substantial request after prior compliance with a smaller demand. In this study, some subjects were first approached with a small request (answer 8 questions in a telephone survey) the size of which was virtually certain to guarantee compliance. Other subjects were first approached with a request sufficiently large to guarantee noncompliance (answer 50 questions). Subjects in both of these conditions were subsequently approached with a moderately sized request (30 questions sponsored by a different public service organization). As predicted by self-perception theory, subjects in the small-initial-request condition showed a higher rate of compliance to the second request (.519), whereas subjects in the large-initial-request condition showed a lower rate of compliance (.219) than subjects in the no-initial-request control condition (.333).