Social Conformity In The Foot-In-The-Door Technique

Our society is influenced by social norms that guides our everyday behavior. One of the chapters of our social psychology textbook discussed a great deal about conformity. However, what is considered to be appropriate behavior is subject to change depending on the situation; this is what we call “conformity.” Conformity being defined as a change in behavior as a result of the real or imagined influence of other people. Conforming to something or an idea means that you need some sort of compliance. Compliance is a type of social influence where an individual does what someone else wants them to do; following a request or suggestion. This is similar to obedience, but there is no direct order. There are many techniques of compliance that a person

So, initially you would make a small request of someone, and once the person agrees to this they tend to find it more difficult to refuse a bigger request. For example, last semester I had a friend who missed a few of her criminal justice classes due to unforeseen circumstances, and asked me to borrow my notes from the last class she had missed. It was a small request that seemed reasonable, so I lend her the notes. A week later, she asked me to borrow all of the notes that I had for that class. And although I was reluctant at first since it was a larger request, I still agreed to let her borrow all of the notes I had for the class. The outcome of this situation would have played out different if the request was not similar to what she originally asked me. If she asked to borrow money as the larger request, I would have definitely said no. The foot-in-the-door technique only works on the principle of consistency. This means that as long as the larger request is consistent with or similar to the original small request, the technique will in fact