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This technique works by creating a connection between the person asking for a request and the person that is being asked. If a smaller request is granted, then the person who is agreeing feels like they are obligated to keep agreeing to larger requests to stay consistent with the original decision of agreeing. This technique is used in many ways and is a well-researched tactic for getting people to comply with requests. The saying is a reference to a door to door salesman who keeps the door from shutting with his foot, making the customer have no choice but to listen to the sales pitch.

History
The Foot in The Door Technique (FITD) was first coined by Johnathan Freedman and Scott Fraser of Stanford University in 1966, when they conducted a study to try and prove this theory of granting smaller requests can lead to agreeing to larger requests. Their findings supported what they had thought was to be true. There was controversy over whether the same process that is involved in the Self-Perception Theory, was similar to that of FITD. Researchers thought that because both theories have to do with maintaining an attitude/agreement that one had in the first place that maybe the processes were similar. In 1999, Jerry M. Burger from Santa Clara University conducted a study to see what the process of this technique is and how it works, he found that there this is just a simple technique and does not relate to self-perception theory.


 * https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01016444

Applications in Everyday Life
There are a number of studies concerning the foot-in-the door technique and charitable donations. For example, Schwarzwald, Bizman, and Raz (1983) investigated the effectiveness of the FITD technique for door-to-door fundraising. In their study, some of the participants were first asked to sign a petition before being asked to make a donation to the organization (foot-in-the-door condition). Others were not asked to sign a petition before making a donation (control condition). The request to sign a petition was made two weeks prior to the request to make a donation. They found that a greater percentage of people made a donation in the foot-in-the-door condition than in the control condition. Also, they found that making the small request to sign a petition resulted in more money being donated than not making this request.The findings from scientific studies on the foot-in-the-door technique have been mixed. Although some studies have found that the FITD technique can increase donations, other studies found no statistically significant effect for the technique on donations.

Chan and colleagues (2011) conducted a study in order to assess the efficiency of foot-in-the-door (FITD) technique versus the door-in-the-face technique (DITF) among 2nd-grade students in an after school center in Hong Kong. Sixty 2nd-grade students were the participants of their study, who were asked to fill out arithmetic exercises. Experimenters asked students to fill out the arithmetic worksheets in either two conditions, the foot-in-the-door condition, or the door-in-the-face condition. The experimenters' goal was to have to students complete a 20-item worksheet.In the foot-in-the-door condition, 12 out of 20 students agreed to complete the 20-item worksheet. In the door-in-the-face condition, 18 out of 20 students agreed to complete the 20-item worksheet. After analysis of the data, the DITF technique appeared to be a more favorable motivator for completing the arithmetic task. These results suggest that while FITD and DITF techniques are successful means for task compliance, DITF may be better suitable for children in an academic setting. Door-in-the-face may be a more effective means of compliance for children not only in this particular setting but also potentially for children in general. While previous findings have shown that both FITD and DITF techniques may be successful in task compliance, these techniques might not be applicable in every compliance setting. This hypothesis can be seen as a limitation to FITD techniques.

A study conducted in 1989 by the Indiana University Southeast and California State University showed that people were more willing to become organ donors after completing a questionnaire about donating organs. It did not matter whether the survey had 5 or 20 questions, it is proven to be just as successful. This survey was conducted with young college students, and the scholars mentioned doing another study with older, less-educated individuals to further support these findings and to broaden the population.

The Psychology Behind the Technique
With all the research supporting that the Foot-In-The-Door Technique is a successful compliance technique, there is a big question as to why humans tend to follow this pattern. The most well-known theory explaining the reasoning behind this is the self-perception theory. When a person has originally agreed to something, he/she will answer a question to themselves about why he/she agreed to these questions and when he/she come to the decision that it was truly their desire and nothing else influenced the answer, he/she will feel the need to stay consistent with their decision and will agree to a larger request. The Self-Perception theory was developed by Daryl Bem, a social psychologist and retired professor from Cornell University, and claims two things: One is that people come to their beliefs and attitudes based on what they enjoy doing and if there is a positive or negative outcome on an experience. The second is that when people do not enjoy something, there is no reasonable explanation on why they would take an interest in it. This theory is the most well known for explaining self-knowledge.