door in face=yummy yummy snacks

The video above demonstrates a concept of compliance known as the door-in-the-face technique. According to O'Keefe and Figge (1999) the reason that this technique works is because the individual that is having the request made to them feels guilty after they deny the initial request, which is an unreasonable request that the individual making does not intend to recieve, and so is therefore more likely to accept the second request, which is more resonable and what the individual making the request wanted all along, because it will make them feel less guilty about denying the first request. For this example the Individual making the request was hungry and wanted to get a snack from the snack machine, and knowing that the door-in-the-face technique could make the person he asked for money more likly to comply with the request for a dollar in order to get that snack if they were first presented with an unreasonable request such as borrowing ten dollars for lunch. In asking for the ten dollars first the individual making the request made the person recieving it feel guilty by making a request that he knew would get denied. Then when the individual making the request asked for the dollar which was what he wanted all along the individual who had denied the initial request tried to get rid of some of the guilt that he felt for denying the first request by accepting the second request and giving the other individual the dollar he asked for.

O'Keefe, D. J., Figgie, M. (1999). Guilt and expected guilt in the door-in-the-face technique. Communication Monographs, 65, 312-324.