Compliance is a form of social influence that involves a direct request, often by a person in need, such as a friend or acquaintance who asked for a favor, or a stranger who requests directions or the time of day. (Grace, Bell & Sugar, J, 2001)

Compliance is known to be enhanced by a number of situational manipulations such as foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face, low-ball and ingratiation.

Four Compliance Strategies -
1. Foot-in-the-door
2. Door-in-the-face
3. Low-ball
4. Ingratiation

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Comparisons of different techniques

A number of studies have compared the effect of different compliance techniques, for examples,

• Context: donations to a cultural organization-

Low ball technique was generally the most effective, especially with respect to the amount of money contributed. This was followed in turn by the door-in-the-face and control conditions, with the foot-in-the-door condition the least effective in virtually every comparison. (Briwnsten, Katzev, 1985)

• Foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face, low-ball, have been shown to increase the effectiveness of verbal donation requests. However, applications of psychological compliance techniques cannot increase the effectiveness of direct-mail campaigns for charitable contributions.

Therefore, analysis of different tactics in different studies suggests that success of applications may depend on carefully planned modifications of the techniques to calibrate them optimally to the particular situations in which strategies are to be undertaken

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References

Brownstein, R.J., Katzev, R.D. (1985)” The Relative Effectiveness of Three Compliance Techniques in Eliciting Donations to a Cultural Organization” Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 15, 6.

Grace, C.R., Bell, P.A., Sugar, J. (2001) “Effects of Compliance Techniques on Spontaneous and Asked-for Helping”, The Journal of Social Psychology, 128, 4.

Wevant, J.M. (1996)”Application of Compliance Techniques to Direct-Mail Requests for Charitable Donations”, Psychology & Marketing,13,2.