Door-in-the-face Technique : Marketing Psychology (How To Ask For A Pay Rise From Your Boss?)

If you are in a condition that asking a request from somebody directly might be refused, do you have a better idea to persuade them to accept your request? The door-in-the-face technique is a commonly used one which might be able to help you achieve your goal. You can try raising a larger request in the first time which will definitely be refused. Then you can ask for your original request which will might have a better chance to be accepted by the respondent.

Psychologically, The door-in-the-face technique method is one compliance method, which is based on the fact that refusing the larger request will increase the likelihood to accept a subsequent smaller request. The cause of this fact is the rule of reciprocity in our mind. This rule indicates that if somebody else is doing something for us, then we will be obligated to do something for them in return.

For example, if one friend is borrowing 200 dollars from you, and you may refuse that request. However, if they say "I know you are also short of money these days, how about I borrowing 100 dollars from you?". This time, you may choose to lend money to him. This is because you may think that your friend already have done something for you by decreasing the amount, which makes you feel that you owe something to him, and thus accept his request in return.

Another famous example for this technique is the Cialdini experiment on 1975. Robert Cialdini asked a group of testers to escort a group of juvenile delinquents to the zoo, and only 13% accepted the request. In another group of testers, the first request they received is to spend 2 hours per week with those young delinquents for two years. Then the second request is the same escorting them to the zoo as the first group. This time, 50% of the testers in this group accept the second escorting request.

In our daily life, there are may situations we can make use of this technique to enhance the chance of success for a request. For example, you are about to ask a pay rise from your manager. You know that asking for a 10% might be refused. However, if you raise a request to a 15% in the first time and then decrease the request to 10%, the chance of success will be much higher than asking 10% directly.

At work, when you are assigned to do a hard task, it is very possible that your boss is not expecting a good result for it. Comparing with those simple tasks, the hard task might be a better option for people willing to try it out. In this case, you have nothing to lose, any positive surprise for those tasks will definitely boost your visibility in your company.

Although the Door-in-the-face Technique may help us achieve some goals easily, there are some limitations when using this method. One important thing is that the first request shouldn't be unreasonably large. This will make it be ignored by the respondent completely and they will not have the feeling that they owe you something because the first request seems to be ridiculous.

In marketing, under extensive competition, for a specific product or service, a customer usually have a few options to choose from. A very large request such as a high price will easily scare your customer away and they are very possible to go to your competitors.

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