The belief to have fixed or malleable traits and help giving: implicit theories and sequential social influence techniques

Two sequential social influence techniques, the foot-in-the-door and the door-in-the-face, seem to be symmetrical, but there are different moderators and quite different mechanisms underlying each of the strategies. What links both techniques is the social interaction between a person presenting a s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polish psychological bulletin 2009-01, Vol.40 (2), p.85-100
Main Authors: Gamian-Wilk, Malgorzata, Lachowicz-Tabaczek, Kinga
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
compliance
implicit theories
interaction dynamics
Magnitude
Moderators
Perception
Sequences
Social influence
social influence techniques
Theorists
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Summary:Two sequential social influence techniques, the foot-in-the-door and the door-in-the-face, seem to be symmetrical, but there are different moderators and quite different mechanisms underlying each of the strategies. What links both techniques is the social interaction between a person presenting a sequence of requests and an interlocutor. The techniques' effectiveness depends on the course and perception of the interaction and the difficulty of requests in the sequence. The aim of the article was to verify various mechanisms of incremental (individuals who believe in malleable personality) and entity theorists (individuals who believe in fixed traits) compliance with the FITD and the DITF techniques. In a series of four studies it was shown that incremental theorists comply the FITD technique to a greater extend especially when a sequence of requests meets their mastery style of behavior thus means an interesting challenge to undertake or opportunity to deepen contact with a newly met person. Entity theorists are more prone to the DITF strategy as their helpless style of behavior and sense of guilt are triggered, thus a sequence of decreasing in magnitude demands is perceived as less threatening.
ISSN:0079-2993
1641-7844
DOI:10.2478/s10059-009-0009-z