The 1975 Door in the Face Experiment by Cialdini a.o.

The 1975 Door in the Face Experiment by Cialdini a.o.

In 1975, an experiment was conducted by Cialdini and his colleagues to study this phenomenon:

• People were divided into 3 groups.
• The 1st group was asked to volunteer as counselors for a group of juvenile delinquents for 2 hours per week, for a period of 2 years. Once the participants denied the request, a second request was made and they were asked to take them to the zoo for one day.
• The 2nd group was asked only to take them to the zoo.
• The 3rd group was told about the 2 year counseling plan but was only asked to take them to the zoo.

The results were that 50% people from the 1st group agreed to the second request that was made (taking them to the zoo) as opposed to the 17% and 25% in the second and third group respectively.
This proved that the Door in the Face technique:

1. Was working
2. Brought about better results than a request made in isolation (like for the second group).
3. Was only successful if a first (unreasonable) request was followed by a second (reasonable) request (as the results of the 3rd group in comparison to the 1st group showed).