── ── Mental model
Door-in-the-Face Technique
Ask for something large (expect refusal), then retreat to the smaller request you actually wanted. The empirically documented result: compliance with the smaller ask is 2-3x higher than asking for it directly (Cialdini et al., 1975). The mechanism is reciprocal concession — the target perceives your retreat as a concession and feels social pressure to match it.
How it works
Three operations: recognize DITF when used on you; design it ethically as a proposer; distinguish it from pure anchoring (two requests with refusal vs. a single number). Composes with reciprocity, anchoring, signaling-games, batna-zopa.
When to use it
- user asks 'they made a big ask then backed off, should I concede?'
- user is designing a negotiation opening and wants to land at a specific price
- someone says 'anchor high then retreat' or 'reciprocal concession'
- user suspects they are being manipulated by a two-step request pattern
When not to use it
When the decision is routine and reversible, applying a formal method costs more than it returns.
Worked example
Cialdini, Vincent, Lewis, Catalan, Wheeler & Darby, 1975
The technique's primary experimental documentation is in "Reciprocal Concessions Procedure for Inducing Compliance: The Door-in-the-Face Technique" by Cialdini, Vincent, Lewis, Catalan, Wheeler & Darby, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in February 1975 (Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 206-215). The paper is the canonical empirical demonstration.
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