[4] In an early study, a team of psychologists telephoned housewives in California and asked if the women would answer a few questions about the household products they used.
This time, they asked if they could send five or six men into the house to go through cupboards and storage places as part of a 2-hour enumeration of household products.
[6][7][8] Research has shown that FITD techniques work over the computer via email, in addition to face-to-face requests.
[9] 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.
[10] In an experiment, subjects were initially asked to have signs in their windows to promote recycling along with varying amounts of incentives ($0, $1, $3) for doing so.
[10] This study found that the FITD technique was more effective than any of the incentive strategies in producing behavioural persistence.
[10] This is supported by the self-perception theory, which states that the FITD technique is effective only because internal thoughts are what drive people's behaviour.
This information coupled with work by Swanson, Sherman, and Sherman,[13] which found that students' compliance to an initial, neutral and small request not only increased their willingness to comply with a subsequent larger and anxiety-producing request, but also indicated that the anxiety-producing request was deemed less anxiety-producing than did the control group, has very large implication for possible online uses of the FITD technique.
A common example undertaken in research studies uses this foot-in-the-door technique: two groups are asked to place a large, very unsightly sign in their front yard reading "Drive Carefully".
The members of one group have previously been approached to put a small sign in their front window reading "Be a Safe Driver", and almost all agreed.
[1] Having already shown 'community spirit' by taking part in the campaign to reduce the nation's road carnage – 'stepping forward' as a "good citizen" by giving prominence to the "Be a Safe Driver" sign, a statement to the world – there is social pressure to also agree to a grander, if more inconvenient, version of the same exercise and in order to appear consistent in one's beliefs and behaviour.
For example, Schwarzwald, Bizman, and Raz (1983) investigated the effectiveness of the FITD technique for door-to-door fundraising.
After analysis of the data, the DITF technique appeared to be a more favorable motivator for completing the arithmetic task.
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.
[17] 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.