Willing submission and psychology of commitment

Imagine Christmas is coming and you decide to go shopping in the city center of Nantes. While you are quietly walking in the streets, a man you don’t know stops you and asks for the location of the Galeries Lafayette. You tell him the way, he politely thank you and continues his walk. After only few seconds, this same person accidentally drops a stack of brochures. What would you do ? Probably, like 85% of the subjects involved in the experiment conducted by Foehl & Goldman (1983), you would go help this poor man. Comparatively, only 10% of the subjects helped an accomplice that did not get in contact with them beforehand.

That study, like many other ones, is an illustration of the « Foot-in-the-Door » technique that is a well known behavior in social psychology.

The main goal of this type of experimentation is to demonstrate that, when a person is « psychologically prepared », he or she cans accept a request more expensive that he or she could have without being prepared, if it has been asked directly.

In his publication Psychologie de la manipulation et de la soumission (2002), Guéguen links some theoretical explanations to that effect, here we will only develop the concept of commitment (Kiesler, 1971).

Commitment, according to Kiesler, is the link between an individual and his or her behavior. The more that individual will be committed into it, the more he or she will strongly adopt a conduct. That theory is based on the idea that when someone has started doing something, he or she is already committed to continue to do that thing. In our case, since you already helped the man by telling him his way, you are committed into help and you will more likely be able to pick up the fallen brochures.

For social psychologists, that theory represents a strong method to get people doing what we want them to do. It is a tool for influence and manipulation.

There are five factors that put the level of commitment into perspective :

• The public or private character of the behavior : when your conduct is witnessed, you are more committed into it.
• The repetition of the action.
• The cost related to the conduct.
• The reversibility or irreversibility of the behavior.
• The freedom of action : your behavior is more committed when you feel (or think) that you do it freely.

According to Joulé & Beauvois, the latter is called « willing submission ». It represents the idea that, when the conscious dimension of the action is emphasized, an individual is more committed to engage that action than if he or she was forced to do it, even when that individual had not thought about it before being invited to. That theory also explains the fact that 90% of the subjects did not helped the anonymous man with the fallen brochures that did not get in contact with them beforehand in the experimentation conducted by Foehl & Goldman. The willing submission leads us to behave in a way that we would not have ordinarily.

Finally, some factors explains the success or failure of the Foot-in-the-Door effect. For example, people are more likely able to accept a request when it is pro-social than private. The period between the first and the second request is also a factor in a way that it has to be sufficient so people can feel free to accept or refuse it. Some researchers showed that a long period of time between the two requests does not affect the tendance to accept it or not (Beaman, Steblay, Preston & Klentz, 1988). Lastly, the cost of the first request has to be moderate for people to be prepared to accept the second one.

Thus, if the man in the street has asked you first to donate 1€ one time for a private company and right after asked 100€ every month, there is a high probability that both of these requests will be denied, whereas requests well measured will come to an expected end.

 

Reference :

Guéguen, N. (2002). Psychologie de la manipulation et de la soumission. Paris : Dunod.