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Evocation of freedom and compliance: the but you are free of… technique

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Nicolas Guéguen at University of Southern Brittany
Nicolas Guéguen
Alexandre Pascual at University of Bordeaux
Alexandre Pascual
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Abstract

Many investigations showed that the semantic characteristics of a request could lead to more compliance. A feeling of freedom is also a factor favoring compliance to numerous types of requests. An experiment was carried out, in which the evocation of freedom was formulated verbally, following a demand for money made by confederates. Results show that the verbal incentive used (demand for money + "but you are free to accept or to refuse") increased the rate of subjects’ compliance as well as the average amount of granted gifts. The semantic activation of the feeling of freedom is discussed within the framework of numerous paradigms of research on compliance.
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CURRENT RESEARCH IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 5, Number 18
Submitted: July 5, 2000
Resubmitted: August 24, 2000
Accepted: September 11, 2000
Publication date: September 12, 2000
EVOCATION OF FREEDOM AND COMPLIANCE: THE "BUT YOU ARE
FREE OF..." TECHNIQUE
Nicolas Guéguen
South-Brittany University
Alexandre Pascual
University of Bordeaux
ABSTRACT
Many investigations showed that the semantic characteristics of a request could lead to more
compliance. A feeling of freedom is also a factor favoring compliance to numerous types of
requests. An experiment was carried out, in which the evocation of freedom was formulated
verbally, following a demand for money made by confederates. Results show that the verbal
incentive used (demand for money + "but you are free to accept or to refuse") increased the
rate of subjects’ compliance as well as the average amount of granted gifts. The semantic
activation of the feeling of freedom is discussed within the framework of numerous paradigms
of research on compliance.
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INTRODUCTION
Research on helping behavior have traditionally emphasized the characteristics of the donor,
the beneficiary, and the context. Some research however concerned the linguistic aspect of the
requests for help. Thus Cialdini and Schroeder (1976) showed that the addition of the
sentence "even a penny will help" leads the solicited people to give more to an humanitarian
organization. This sentence also increased the rate of donors. Numerous replications of this
technique (Reeves, Macolini and Martin 1987; Reeves and Saucer 1993) give evidence of its
efficiency on compliance behavior. By manipulating the semantic contents of the request,
Enzle and Harvey (1982) showed that an indirect negation request (e.g. You will help me,
won’t you?) elicited greater helping than either a direct negation (e.g. Won’t you help me?) or
a control form (e.g. Will you help me?).
In the same way, Howard (1990) had demonstrated that asking someone how he feels
improves compliance with a helping request made immediately after the subject’s response.
Another procedure that improves compliance to a request is the "that’s-not-all technique"
(Burger 1986). When applying this technique, the requester presents a recipient with a first
request at a certain price but does not allow the subject the instant opportunity to decline or to
accept the offer. As the subject considers the price, the requester then improves the deal by
including an extra product or by lowering the price of the offer. In Burger’s first experiment,
people approaching a bake sale table were told that the price of a cupcake was $0.75. At this
moment, the seller was interrupted by a second seller who needs help. The first seller then
asked the subject to "wait a second." Then after a brief exchange between the two salesmen
(5-10 seconds), the first seller returned to the client and announced to him that the offer also
included two cookies. Results showed that 73.0 % of the subjects in this "that’s-not-all
condition" bought the cupcake with the two cookies package whereas 40.0 % bought this
package when the complete offer was made at the same price.
Another factor facilitating compliance to requests, but which does not proceed from the
semantic characteristics of the request, is the feeling of freedom of the subject. This feeling of
freedom would be one of the main factors predisposing to the compliance (Kiesler 1971).
Now, we cannot keep count of research on the compliance without pressure, which gives
evidence of the efficiency of techniques facilitating the activation of this feeling of freedom:
foot-in-the-door (Freedman and Fraser 1966), door-in-the-face (Cialdini, Vincent, Lewis,
Catalan, Wheeler and Lee Darby 1975), low-ball (Cialdini, Cacioppo, Bassett and Miller
1978) or also the technique of the lure (Joule, Gouilloux and Weber 1989). Surprisingly,
experimental research concerning this feeling of freedom have compared some situations
where the subject’s freedom was
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reduced, comparatively to a situation of free choice (Beaman, Svanum, Manlove and
Hamtpton 1974; Chartrand, Pinckert and Burger 1999). According to the reactance theory of
Brehm (1966), this feeling of loss of freedom comes along with a drastic fall of compliance.
Few studies were made on conditions favoring a feeling of increased freedom in the decision
of the subject, notably by means of the semantic characteristics of the requests. With the
benefit of hindsight, we realize that the effect of sentences such as "it is up to you to see," "up
to you to choose," "but you are free of…" which are generally expressed to punctuate the end
of a request in the case of the techniques of compliance without pressure, were never the
object of a direct investigation. This is the objective fixed by the experiment presented below.
HYPOTHESIS
Accounting for the persuasive effects contained in the semantic properties of requests, shown
by the various research quoted above, we could expect that the direct semantic evocation of
the freedom of subject’s decision facilitates the request’s compliance.
METHOD
Subjects
Forty men and 40 women (age range 30-50 years old), alone, chosen at random in the street.
Forty people were random in the experimental group (20 men and 20 women) and 40 in the
control group (20 men and 20 women).
Procedure
Four people, 2 men and 2 women (average age 20-22 years old), played the role of
confederates in this experiment. They were dressed neatly and in a traditional way for young
people of this age (jeans/sneakers/T-shirt). The experiment took place in a mall during
particularly sunny spring days. A confederate approached a subject taken at random after
counting the passage of a definite number of pedestrians in a defined zone. If the subject was a
child or a teenager or an old man or a group, the confederate took the person coming just after
so that she corresponds to the expected profile. In the control condition, the confederate
approached the subject by saying to him or her politely: "Sorry Madam/Sir, would you have
some coins to take the bus, please?" In experimental condition, the confederate formulated
with the same tone the following request: "Sorry Madam/Sir, would you have some coins to
take the bus, please? But you are free to accept or to refuse." The confederate then estimated if
the subject agreed or not to his request. In the case of a positive answer, the confederate
waited for the subject to give him the money. He estimated the amount and then gave back the
sum to the subject and proceeded to completely debrief the subject.
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RESULTS
On all measures employed in this study, no differences were found between male and female
subjects. This is also true with the differences between the four confederates of this
experiment. So, data was aggregated. In the control condition, 10.0 % of solicited people
accepted the request of the confederate, whereas 47.5 % accepted in the experimental
condition. The comparison of these two rates gives evidence of a significant difference [X²(1,
80) = 13.73, p <.001]. The evocation of the freedom of subject’s decision leads to favor the
request compliance. When we consider the mean amount of the gifts granted by the people
having accepted the request in each of the groups, we observe that it is FF 3.25 (US $ 0.48) in
the control condition versus FF 7.05 (US $ 1.04) in the experimental condition. Here also, this
difference is significant [t(21) = 3.03, p <.01, two-tailed] and this is in spite of a weak
compliance rate in the control group (4 persons over 40). The evocation of freedom favored
the generosity of solicited people and the average amount of the granted gifts corresponds to
the price of a bus ticket at the time of the experiment (FF 6.80 or US $ 1.00).
DISCUSSION
We observe that the semantic evocation of freedom in the content of the request increases the
probability of compliance, but also favors the implication of the subject, as this one grants
twice more money to the requester. This experiment confirms that we can obtain more
compliance in a request directly by manipulating its verbal contents. This goes along the same
lines of numerous previous works as those concerning the technique of "even a penny will
help" (Cialdini and Schroeder 1976; Reeves, Macolini and Martin 1987; Reeves and Saucer
1993), that of the "foot-in-the-mouth" (Howard 1990) or that of "that’s not all" (Burger 1986;
Pollock, Smith, Knowles and Bruce 1998). The results of this experiment seem to show that
we can add to this set of techniques the one of "but you are free of..."
Why is there such efficiency with this technique? Naturally, it is not the additional verbal
contents which explains our results, but rather what the contents of it activates among the
subjects. In this stage of the evaluation, four explanations can be proposed. Firstly, it is
possible that the verbal evocation of the freedom contained in the request really activates the
feeling of freedom for the subject. Now, numerous researches show that the increase of this
feeling of freedom acts as a facilitator of commitment towards the expected behavior (Kiesler
1971; Cialdini 1993). Secondly, perhaps this evocation of freedom leads the subject to feel
socially more involved towards the demand for help formulated by the confederate. Now, this
norm of social responsibility, when activated, makes a powerful facilitator for spontaneous
help by others and of compliance to requests (Berkowitz and Daniels 1963; Harris 1972).
Furthermore, the activation of this norm improves compliance with the
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request but also the degree of implication of subject (Guéguen and Fisher-Lokou 1999).
Thirdly, the evocation of the freedom in the contents of the request would limit the weight of
external causes to compliance, and favors the activation of internal causes. Now, in
compliance without pressure, notably within the framework of the paradigm of the Foot-in-
the-door, when requests strengthen the weight of external factors to compliance, less further
compliance is obtained (Zuckerman, Lazzaro and Waldgeir 1979). Conversely, more
compliance is noticed when the attribution of internal causes is favored (Gorassini and Olson
1995). Finally, it is also possible that the evoked freedom arises a guilty feeling from the
subject if he does not answer to the request. We know for a long time now that guilt favors
helping behavior (Konecni 1972) and certain classic paradigms of the compliance without
pressure, as the Door-in-the-Face, see their results interpreted in this way (O’Keffe and Gigge
1997).
Naturally, these interpretations appear for the moment premature and the effect of the "but you
are free of..." technique still remains to be confirmed and more factors explaining its
efficiency require further research. Nevertheless, because more compliance was obtained in
the experimental group, the research reported here demonstrates the effectiveness of this
technique based on the simple evocation of freedom.
REFERENCES
Beaman, A., S. Svanum, S. Manlove, and C. Hamtpton (1974). "An attribution theory
explanation of the foot-in-the-door effects." Personality-and-Social-Psychology-Bulletin,
1:122-123.
Berkowitz, L. and L. Daniels (1963). "Responsability and dependency." Journal of Abnormal
Social Psychology, 66:429-436.
Brehm, P. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance. New-York : Academic Press.
Burger, J. (1986). "Increasing compliance by improving the deal: the that’s-not-all technique."
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51:277-283.
Chartrand, T., S. Pinckert, and J. Burger (1999). "When manipulation backfires: the effects of
time delay and requester on the foot-in-the-door technique." Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 29:211-221.
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Cialdini, R. (1993). Influence. New-York: HarperCollins.
Cialdini, R., J. Cacioppo, R. Bassett and J. Miller (1978). "Low-ball procedure for producing
compliance: commitment then cost." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36:463-
476.
Cialdini, R. and D. Schroeder (1976). "Increasing compliance by legitimizing paltry
contributions: when even a penny help." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
34:599-604.
Cialdini, R., J. Vincent, S. Lewis, J. Catalan, D. Wheeler and B. Lee Darby (1975).
"Reciprocal concessions procedure for inducing compliance : the door-in-the-face technique."
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31:206-215.
Enzle, M. and M. Harvey (1982). "Rhetorical request for help." Social Psychology Quarterly,
45:172-176.
Freedman, J. and S. Fraser (1966). "Compliance without pressure: the foot-in-the-door
technique." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4:195-202.
Gorassini, D. and J. Olson (1995). "Does self-perception change explain the foot-in-the door
effect?" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69:91-105.
Guéguen, N. and J. Fisher-Lokou (1999). "Sequential request strategy: effect on donor
generosity." The Journal of Social Psychology, 139:669-671.
Harris, M. (1972). "The effects of performing one altruistic act on the likelihood of
performing another." The Journal of Social Psychology, 88:65-73.
Howard, D. (1990). "The influence of verbal responses to common greetings on compliance
behavior: the foot-in-the-mouth effect." Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 20:1,185-
1,196.
Joule, R-V., F. Gouilloux, and F. Weber (1989). "The lure: a new compliance procedure." The
Journal of Social Psychology, 129:741-749.
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Kiesler, C. (1971). The psychology of commitment. New-York: Academic Press.
Konecni, V. (1972). "Some effects of guilt on compliance: a field replication." Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 23:30-32.
O’Keffe, D. and M. Figge (1997). "A guilt-based explanation of the door-in-the-face influence
strategy." Human Communication Research, 24:64-81.
Pollock, C., S. Smith., E. Knowles, and H. Bruce (1998). "Mindfulness limits compliance
with the that’s-not-all technique." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24:1,153-
1,157.
Reeves, R., R. Macolini, and R. Martin (1987). "Legitimizing paltry contributions: on-the-spot
vs. mail-in-requests." Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 17:731-738.
Reeves, R. and P. Saucer (1993). "A test of commitment in legitimizing paltry contributions."
Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 8:537-544.
Zuckerman, M., M. Lazzaro and D. Waldgeir (1979). "Undermining effects of the Foot-in-the-
door technique with extrinsic rewards." Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 9:292-296.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
Nicolas Guéguen is currently Assistant Professor in Social Psychology at the South-Brittany
University in France. His e-mail address is nicolas.gueguen@iu-vannes.fr.
Alexandre Pascual is a student in doctoral dissertation at the University of Bordeaux 2 in
France. His e-mail address is alpascual@iFrance.com.
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... En périphérie des paradigmes d'influence séquentiels, la Soumission librement consentie compte également nombre de procédures consistant à modifier subtilement la forme de la sollicitation en y ajoutant un geste ou quelques mots. En se cantonnant aux paradigmes opérationnalisés sous la forme de techniques d'influence abouties, l'on peut y ranger le paradigme du Toucher qui consiste à toucher au bras la personne sollicitée en formulant la requête (Kleinke, 1977), le paradigme de l'Étiquetage (souvent combiné au paradigme de P.D.L.P., mais qui peut également être mobilisé isolément) consistant à attribuer à la personne sollicitée un trait de caractère favorable en lien avec la requête (Miller, Brickman et Bollen, 1975), le paradigme de la Légitimation des faibles contributions consistant à informer la personne sollicitée qu'une faible participation de sa part est possible (Cialdini et Schroeder, 1976), le paradigme du Vous-êtes libre-de qui consiste ajouter une formule déclarative rendant saillant la liberté dont l'individu dispose d'y accéder (Guéguen & Pascual, 2000) ; le paradigme du Et-ce-n'est-pas-tout, qui consiste à décomposer une offre commerciale pour la faire apparaitre plus avantageuse (Burger, 1986) ; le paradigme de la Pique (Santos, Leve et Pratkanis, 1994) qui consiste à formuler la requête sous une forme très précise ou encore le paradigme du Décadrer -Recadrer (Davis & Knowles, 1999) mais consistantes avec celles observées dans la majeure partie des paradigmes de Soumission librement consentie. Parmi les variables modératrices de l'effet, seule la situation de sollicitation (en face à face versus par courrier) s'est révélée significative dans la méta-analyse de Andrews et al. (2008). ...
... Parmi les paradigmes basés sur une évocation sémantique, celui du Vous-êtes-libre-de est sans doute le plus connu. Facteur déterminant de l'effet d'engagement, le sentiment de liberté a initialement été mobilisé dans les paradigmes mettant à l'épreuve la théorie de la Dissonance cognitive, avant d'être évalué en tant que procédure d'influence à part entière par Guéguen et Pascual (2000). Les recherches princeps conduites par Guéguen et Pascual (2000) et Les interprétations proposées pour rendre compte de l'effet, multiples dans les premières publications -activation de la norme de responsabilité sociale (Berkovitz & Daniel, 1963) ; sentiment de culpabilité (Boster, Mitchell, Lapinski, Cooper, Orrego, et Reinke, 1999) ; requête perçue comme plus polie (Brown & Levinson, 1987) augmentant la pression à s'y conformer ; activation de la norme de réciprocité (Gouldner, 1960) induite par la mention du caractère acceptable d'un éventuel refus de la requête ; caractère engageant de la liberté en référence à la théorie de l'Engagement (Joule & Beauvois, 1998) ou réduction de la réactance psychologique (Brehm, 1966) -se sont resserrées avec le temps, et les auteurs du paradigme ciblent désormais les deux dernières exclusivement. ...
... Facteur déterminant de l'effet d'engagement, le sentiment de liberté a initialement été mobilisé dans les paradigmes mettant à l'épreuve la théorie de la Dissonance cognitive, avant d'être évalué en tant que procédure d'influence à part entière par Guéguen et Pascual (2000). Les recherches princeps conduites par Guéguen et Pascual (2000) et Les interprétations proposées pour rendre compte de l'effet, multiples dans les premières publications -activation de la norme de responsabilité sociale (Berkovitz & Daniel, 1963) ; sentiment de culpabilité (Boster, Mitchell, Lapinski, Cooper, Orrego, et Reinke, 1999) ; requête perçue comme plus polie (Brown & Levinson, 1987) augmentant la pression à s'y conformer ; activation de la norme de réciprocité (Gouldner, 1960) induite par la mention du caractère acceptable d'un éventuel refus de la requête ; caractère engageant de la liberté en référence à la théorie de l'Engagement (Joule & Beauvois, 1998) ou réduction de la réactance psychologique (Brehm, 1966) -se sont resserrées avec le temps, et les auteurs du paradigme ciblent désormais les deux dernières exclusivement. L'interprétation basée sur la Réactance psychologique propose un mécanisme inverse à celui mettant habituellement en scène cette théorie. ...
Manuscrit HDR Sébastien Meineri
Thesis
Full-text available
  • Mar 2024
Résumé : Cette note de synthèse présente une sélection des travaux de recherches que j’ai menés durant ma thèse de doctorat et depuis la soutenance de celle-ci fin 2009. Ces travaux s’inscrivent principalement dans le champ de l’influence sociale, et plus particulièrement dans le champ de la Soumission Librement Consentie dans une perspective à la fois fondamentale et appliquée. La première partie de la synthèse prend la forme d’une revue de la littérature relative aux paradigmes et propositions théoriques qui composent le champ de la soumission librement consentie, augmentée des modestes contributions que j’ai pu y apporter en tentant d’éclairer théoriquement le fonctionnement d’un paradigme, notamment en incluant des variables connexes, ou en élaborant des opérationnalisations alternatives. Les théories de l’Identification de l’action occupent une place centrale dans cette revue, et la mise en évidence de ses apports conduisent à la présentation d’un nouveau paradigme, dit du Pied-dans-le-pourquoi. La seconde partie présente certaine des recherches à visée d’application et en Ingénierie psychosociale que j’ai eu l’opportunité de mener sur les thématiques environnementales de la gestion des déchets et l’écomobilité. Des perspectives de recherches fondamentales et appliquées sont proposées à la suite de chacune des parties, donnant un aperçu de mes questionnements théoriques actuels et travaux à venir.
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... The But-You-Are-Free (BYAF) technique is a commitment technique invented and used by Guéguen and Pascual (2000). This technique consists of an addition of the words "but you are free" during a request to enhance the acceptance of the request. ...
... Contrary to other techniques, the BYAF is easy to use -you only need to add one sentence to the request. For example, Guéguen and Pascual (2000) observed 10% of compliance rate with the request "Sorry Madam/Sir, would you have some coins to take the bus, please?" (Control condition), whereas 47.5% was obtained with "Sorry Madam/Sir, would you have some coins to take the bus, please? But you are free to accept or to refuse." ...
... The technique relies on the salience of the target's freedom in their decision-making process. The acknowledgement that one can say "no" leads to say "yes" more often, and to be more committed, as shown by the amount of money given in most of the studies (e.g., Guéguen and Pascual, 2000). As commitment theory (Kiesler, 1971;Kiesler and Sakumura, 1966) postulates, it is possible to manipulate the degree of commitment by manipulating the degree of perceived choice when performing the act. ...
The effectiveness of the "But-you-are-free" technique: Meta-analysis and re-examination of the technique
Article
Full-text available
  • Jul 2023
The “But you are free. . . ” (BYAF) technique is a technique to increase compliance (for example, to give spare change for the bus), by adding the words “But you are free to accept or refuse” to the request. In this pre-registered meta-analysis, we examine the effect of the BYAF technique in 52 experiments (N = 19528). An analysis of 74 effect sizes showed a medium effect (g = 0.44, 95% confidence intervals (CI) [0.36, 0.51]) for the BYAF technique. A moderator analysis found a stronger effect for faceto-face interactivity over other types of interactivities. All the other moderators we used were not statistically significant. We did not find any differences between articles published before and after Carpenter’s (2013) meta-analysis. An examination of risk of bias showed that only seven studies were of “low risk”, and a meta-analysis of these studies showed no effect of the BYAF (g = 0.11, 95% CI [-0.18, 0.40]) We also found that most recent studies on the subject are too low-powered to detect the effect found by Carpenter (2013), and the reproducibility rates were critically low (R-index = 9.77%, Z-curve expected discovery rate = 6%). We propose some improvements to the design and experiments to ensure the effects found in the literature exist and are replicable. All materials are available on https://osf.io/8eqa5/
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... To date, researchers have investigated a host of these techniques, empirically demonstrated the degrees to which particular techniques increase rates of compliance, and identified the mechanisms underlying their effectiveness, as well as the boundaries of their effectiveness in specific situations [2][3][4][5], laying a crucial groundwork for applications in, for example, medical environments. 'But you are free' (BYAF) is one such technique, developed by Guéguen and Pascual [6]. Importantly, to date, this technique has never been tested in the environment of medical practice, making this study very promising, especially in the age of rising vaccination hesitancy and refusal to follow doctors' recommendations. ...
... In numerous studies it has been demonstrated that, as predicted by the aforementioned reactance theory, the BYAF technique consistently increases compliance with a variety of requests, such as completing a survey [8][9][10][11], donating money to a nonprofit organization [6,11], allowing a stranger to borrow a mobile phone to make a call [8,12], or obtaining some monetary change from a stranger to take the bus [6]. According to results of a meta-analysis, this simple technique is robust, highly reliable, and effective. ...
... In numerous studies it has been demonstrated that, as predicted by the aforementioned reactance theory, the BYAF technique consistently increases compliance with a variety of requests, such as completing a survey [8][9][10][11], donating money to a nonprofit organization [6,11], allowing a stranger to borrow a mobile phone to make a call [8,12], or obtaining some monetary change from a stranger to take the bus [6]. According to results of a meta-analysis, this simple technique is robust, highly reliable, and effective. ...
The Effects of Offering Freedom to Comply by Pediatricians and Nurses, Using the But-You-Are-Free (BYAF) Technique, on Vaccination Compliance on 185 Parents of Newborn Babies Conducted in Outpatient Clinics in Poland Between January 2022 and July 2022
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2022
  • MED SCI MONITOR
Background This study aimed to evaluate, in outpatient clinics in Poland between January 2022 and July 2022, the effectiveness of the But-You-Are-Free (BYAF) social influence technique by healthcare professionals during interaction with 185 parents deciding about vaccinating (eg, Hexacima, Prevenor 13, Synflorix, Rotateq, Act Hib, Boostrix, Pentaxim, DTP, Imovax, Priorix, MMR, Tetracim, Adacel, Euvax B, Fuvax, FSME, Varilix, Nimenrix, Bexero vaccines) their babies. Material/Methods During an interaction with pediatricians or nurses, the parents were encouraged to vaccinate their babies. In experimental condition (111 interactions), the BYAF technique was employed, and the phrase “But you are free” was added at the end of the conversation. In the control condition (74 interactions), it was not employed. Results In the experimental condition, 71 (64%) participants declared intention to vaccinate their children. In the control condition, it 61 (84%) participants declared intention to vaccinate (the difference in percentages was significant: P=0.006). The number of parents who actually vaccinated their babies in the experimental condition was 92 (83%) and in the control condition it was 70 (95%; P=0.018). Conclusions The findings showed that participants who were exposed to the BYAF technique declared lower intentions to vaccinate their babies, and vaccinated them less often than those in the control condition. This result critically highlights that this technique should not be employed in the medical settings of pediatric vaccination.
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... In the literature, we can find more than 107 social influence tactics in the literature [137,40]. However, Joule and Almeida [87] cite only a few of them as suitable for pedagogical use: the foot-in-the-door [59], the foot-in-the-door with implicit request [171], the foot-in-the-door with labelling [65], the touch [96], and but-you-are-free-to [68]. We are particularly interested in the foot-in-the-door technique and its variants because the touch and the but-you-are-free-to techniques are not relevant to provide engaging recommendations. ...
... We are particularly interested in the foot-in-the-door technique and its variants because the touch and the but-you-are-free-to techniques are not relevant to provide engaging recommendations. As a matter of fact, the touch technique [96] consists in making a request to the subject while gently touching his arm which is not possible to implement in a virtual learning environment; and the but-you-are-free-to technique [68] consists in making a request followed by the sentence "but you are free to say yes or no", which can be easily implemented in a virtual learning environment, but can also be easily ignored, especially after a few recommendations as it will look like a default message from the system. On the other hand, the foot-in-the-door works by making consecutive requests, which can be integrated to a virtual learning environment. ...
Maximizing students' engagement through effort-based recommendations
Thesis
  • Dec 2021
Data exploitation is a growing phenomenon that is present in different scenarios, including the educational scenario, where it holds the promise of advancing our understanding and improving the learning process. From this promise emerged the learning analysis research field that, ideally, takes advantage of technology and educational theories to explore the educational data. On the technological side, we are interested in recommendation systems because they can help students, teachers and other stakeholders to find the best learning resources and thus achieve their learning goals and develop competencies in less time. On the theoretical side, we are interested in the social influence technique foot-in-the-door, which consists in making consecutive requests with an increasing cost. This technique seems particularly relevant to the educational context because it can not only be formalized into a recommendation system, but it is also compatible with the zone of proximal development that states that the challenge presented by the learning resources need to increase gradually in order to keep students motivated. However, we do not know to what extent explicitly applying this technique via recommendations can influence students. Therefore, in this thesis, we investigate such influences assuming that students’ effort is a good indicator of the cost of the requests, since not only every learning activity requires a certain level of effort and, but it is often cited as a key factor for students’ success. For this, we modeled the measurement and prediction of the students’ effort through machine learning models using data that can be used in real life and exploited it in order to explicitly apply the foot-in-the-door technique in a recommendation system. Our results show that, compared to recommendation models that do not formalize this technique, the proposed recommendation models have a positive influence on the students’ effort, compliance, performance and engagement. This suggests that this approach has the potential to improve the learning process as students will present the aforementioned behaviors.
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The Effect of a Default Nudge on Experienced and Expected Autonomy: A Field Study on Food Donation
Article
  • Aug 2024
Default nudges—making the desired option the standard option—are often criticized for hampering autonomy. However, laboratory research suggests this expectation of autonomy loss is not reflected in nudgees' experienced autonomy. In this study, we investigated whether this finding translates to a real‐world setting by implementing a default nudge to increase food donations in the supermarket (Experiment 1). Upon entering the supermarket, customers were asked to donate a food item for charity and were handed a shopping cart/basket that was empty (control) or contained a food item meant for donation (default nudge). Donations were collected after checkout, and customers rated their experienced autonomy of their choice to donate. We replicated this study and added a vignette condition portraying the default nudge to measure expected autonomy for the same situation (Experiment 2). The results show the default nudge reduced participants' expected autonomy but not their experienced autonomy, shedding new light on the relation between nudging and autonomy. Furthermore, this novel form of the default nudge was found to be successful in increasing food donations in the supermarket, further expanding the field where this nudge has been successful.
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Promoting COVID-19 booster vaccines in Macao: A psychological reactance perspective
Article
  • Jul 2023
  • SOC SCI MED
Rationale The booster vaccine plays a key role in ending COVID-19 crisis. However, promoting COVID-19 booster vaccination often interferes with individuals’ freedom of choice and leads to psychological reactance. Objective To promote the public's intention to receive COVID-19 booster dose, this study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of different message designs from psychological reactance theory's perspective. Method A 2 × 2 × 2 factorial experiment was conducted in Macao in January 2022 (N = 469). Partial least squares structural equation modeling and a complementary three-way ANOVA were performed to examine the effects of message frame (gain frame vs. loss frame), freedom restoration postscripts (present vs. absent), and other-referencing cues (present vs. absent) on reducing psychological reactance. Results The present study has successfully broadened the scope of the psychological reactance theory by examining its applicability to the context of COVID-19 booster vaccination promotion. Our findings indicate that the gain-framed promotion messages tend to be the most effective in reducing perceived reactance. However, freedom restoration postscripts, other-referencing cues, and mixed message design were found to be ineffective in alleviating reactance. Besides, the insignificance of direct effect from message frame to intention suggests that the message design itself cannot influence people's vaccination intentions; rather, it must rely on reducing perceived threat, reactance, and further improving vaccination intentions. Conclusions Our study offered valuable insights from psychological reactance perspective, identifying message features that can be effective in health promotions. Furthermore, message design specifically aimed at reducing the threat to freedom may yield unexpected persuasive effects, an aspect currently overlooked in health promotion strategies.
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Mindfulness Limits Compliance with the That's-Not-AU Technique
Article
Full-text available
  • Nov 1998
  • Pers Soc Psychol Bull
The authors assessed whether That's-Not-All (TNA) influence techniques are mindless phenomena. A psychology club gourmet chocolate sale displayed either large or small boxes of chocolate. When passersby asked for the price of the chocolate, they were given a TNA offer or a control offer Inquirers were also told no reason, a placebic reason, or a good reason for buying the chocolate. The box price increased mindfulness. People considering the large box were persuaded by the real reason more than by the placebic reason, whereas people considering the small box were equally persuaded by placebic and real reasons. The TNA offer was effective in selling the small box of chocolate (76% for TNA vs. 45% for control) but not the large box (18% for TNA vs. 24% for control). These findings suggest that the TNA effect works only when people are mindlessly considering the offer.
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Does Self-Perception Change Explain the Foot-in-the-Door Effect?
Article
Full-text available
  • Jul 1995
Consent to perform a small favor increases a respondent's susceptibility to perform a relatively large favor. This phenomenon, known as the foot-in-the-door effect, is considered to result from induced self-perception changes: the respondent comes to feel helpful for doing the small favor and complies again later out of a desire to maintain the instilled self-view. This study did not find a link between self-perception changes and large-request compliance in 2 experiments, although manipulations successfully altered self-rated helpfulness. Specifically, self-rated helpfulness increased (in Experiments 1 & 2) if participants' consent to a small favor brought social approval, and the ratings decreased (in Experiment 2) when social feedback for the small favor contained consensus information (i.e., indicated everyone else was also doing the favor). However, the ratings failed to predict either foot-in-the-door effects actually observed or compliance generally. Preexperimental gender differences in self-perceived helpfulness, in which women construed themselves to be more helpful than men, did successfully predict compliance with the large request. Implications for a theory of foot-in-the-door are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Increasing Compliance by Legitimizing Paltry Contributions: When Even a Penny Helps
Article
Full-text available
  • Oct 1976
Two experiments were conducted in a door-to-door charity drive context with 165 Ss to examine the effectiveness of a technique for solving the dilemma of small requests. In this predicament it has been observed that minimal requests, while serving to make a target person's compliance highly likely, also tend to produce low-level payoffs for the requester. A procedure was developed to avoid the dilemma by legitimizing, rather than requesting, the delivery of a minimal favor. It was predicted that a solicitor who implied that a very small favor was acceptable, but not necessarily desirable, would make it difficult for a target to decline to help and, at the same time, make it unlikely that the target would actually offer a low grade of assistance. In confirmation of this prediction, a door-to-door solicitor for charity was able to increase significantly the frequency of donations while leaving unaffected the size of the donations by adding the sentence, "Even a penny will help," to a standard request for funds. Exp II replicated this result and provided evidence for the legitimization-of-small-favors explanation of the effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Reciprocal concessions procedure for inducing compliance: The Door-in-the-Face technique
Article
Full-text available
  • Feb 1975
Conducted 3 experiments to test the effectiveness of a rejection-then-moderation procedure for inducing compliance with a request for a favor. Ss were a total of 202 passersby on a university campus. All 3 experiments included a condition in which a requester first asked for an extreme favor (which was refused to him) and then for a smaller favor. In each instance, this procedure produced more compliance with the smaller favor than a procedure in which the requester asked solely for the smaller favor. Additional control conditions in each experiment support the hypothesis that the effect is mediated by a rule for reciprocation of concessions. Several advantages to the use of the rejection-then-moderation procedure for producing compliance are discussed. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Increasing Compliance by Improving the Deal. The That's-Not-All Technique
Article
Full-text available
  • Aug 1986
Seven experiments with 426 adolescents, undergraduates, and adults were conducted to examine the effectiveness of a compliance procedure known as the that's-not-all technique. The procedure involves offering a product at a high price, not allowing the customer to respond for a few seconds, then offering a better deal by either adding another product or lowering the price. Exps I–II demonstrated the effectiveness of this procedure over a control group that was given the better deal initially. Exps III–IV suggested that this effectiveness may be partially explained through a norm of reciprocity that calls for the customer to respond to the seller's new offer. Exp V suggested that the effect also results from an altering of the anchor point Ss use to judge the new price. Exp VI indicated the effectiveness of the procedure cannot be explained by the S perceiving the lower price as a bargain. Exp VII, which examined the differences between the that's-not-all and the door-in-the-face procedures, implied that the former technique is more effective than the latter. Overall findings demonstrate the effectiveness of the that's-not-all technique. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Rhetorical Requests for Help
Article
  • Sep 1982
Three experiments are reported that examined the effects of rhetorical agreement transformations on responsiveness to requests for help. The results showed that indirect negation rhetorical requests (e. g., "You will help me, won't you?") elicited greater helping and were perceived as connoting greater recipient need than were either direct negation rhetorical requests (e.g., "Won't you help me?") or control forms (e. g., "Will you help me?"). The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of their relevance to the areas of helping behavior and attitude change.
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The Lure: A New Compliance Procedure
Article
  • Dec 1989
A new compliance procedure called the lure is presented. This tactic consists of first leading a person to make a decision to execute a highly advantageous type of behavior, informing him afterwards that because the circumstances have changed, he can no longer perform the planned act, and then suggesting that he execute a less advantageous behavior. In two experiments, the subjects were led to believe that they would participate in a rather interesting and well-paid experiment. Once they had decided to participate, they were asked to come to the laboratory, where they were told that the planned experiment would not take place after all. It was then suggested that they participate instead in another rather tedious, unpaid experiment. The results attest to the effectiveness of this procedure.
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The Effects of Performing One Altruistic Act on the Likelihood of Performing Another
Article
  • Oct 1972
The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
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