Ha Ha...Sucker (low-balling)

Cialdini, Cacioppo, Bassett, and Miller (1978) found that an effective way to have a person agree to performing a behavior was to first have them agree to the same behavior without telling them the entire cost of that behavior, and only once they had agreed to the behavior with the lower cost do you tell them the entire cost. Although I have probably taken advantage of this technique for obtaining a desired object or behavior one example form my childhood sticks out most in my mind. When I was younger the place to go was the Sonic that was located on the other side of a subdivision that was between my house and the shopping center the Sonic was located in. I wanted to go there and waste some time because I was bored, but it was a few miles away and the only transportation I had was my bike. I knew that I would have to convince my parents to let me go. They usually would if I had a friend go with me, but on this particular day my friend that usually went with me was at soccer practice. I asked my parents to go telling them that I would go with my friend. When they agreed to let me go I left on my bike to go to my friend's house telling my parents that I was going to get him before I left. After a few minutes I returned home telling my parents that my friend was not home, but that I still wanted to go. Though at the time I did not have any idea of how important the time spent going to get my friend was, which gave my parents the time to think of why it was safe for me to go (e.g., I'd have a cell phone with me in case something happened, I was avoiding major roads and would be traveling on the sidewalks most of the way, and I had made the trip before), I know know that it my have been what made them make the decision they did after they had agreed to the first request to go with a friend. Although the friend was not able to go my parents still agreed to let me go, and according to Cialdini et al. (1978) it was likely due to the low-ball procedure and the effect that commiting to something as well as having time to think of other reasons why it was ok to go through with the behavior that was agreed to would increase the low-ball procedure's effectiveness on getting my parents to let me go to Sonic and hang out.


Cialdini, R. B., Cacioppo, J. T., Bassett, R., and Miller, J. A. (1978). Low-ball procedure for producing compliance: Comittment then cost. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36 (5), 463-476.