Introduction
Compliance is social influence where an individual does what someone else requests. Past studies have found multiple social compliance techniques. The most common of these are the Low-Ball strategy, Door in the face strategy and Even a penny will help strategy. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of each of these techniques in trying to get donations from people. In the current study the first independent variable was compliance strategy (Control, Low-Ball, Door-in-the-face, Even a penny will help), the second independent variable was showing a donation receptacle (full jar, empty jar), and the dependent variable was compliance operationally measured as amount of money donated.
The hypotheses for this study were; the low-ball strategy would result in most money collected compared to all other strategies and the ‘even a penny helps’ strategy would result in the most number of donations as compared to the other donations.
The second hypothesis for this study was that a full receptacle (donation jar full of money) would lead to more donations collected compared to an empty donation receptacle.
Method
Participants
192 participants were selected at random to take part in the study. These participants were selected from students found at random in the Los Angeles City College Campus. The participants were divided at random into four groups of 48 participants each to take part in each of the four conditions (control condition, low-ball condition, door-in-the-face condition, and penny condition)
Procedure
Participants were randomly assigned to levels of the independent variable (Control, Low-ball, Door-in-the-face, and Even a penny will help). A Latin Square design was used to counterbalance for order effects. The participants were asked any one of four specifically constructed questions corresponding with their assigned strategy. The questions asked were;
(1) Control condition: Hi. The students in one of my classes are trying to raise money for No Kill LA Animal Shelter. Would you be willing to make a $1.00 donation?
(2) Low-ball condition: Hi. The students in one of my classes are trying to raise money for No Kill LA Animal Shelter. Would you be willing to make a $1.00 donation? (While the person gets his/her money, add the following) We are also asking for an additional $1.00 specially earmarked for the shelter’s spay and neuter program
(3) Door-in-the-face condition: Hi. The students in one of my classes are trying to raise money for No Kill LA Animal Shelter. Because of the seriousness of the situation, would you be willing to donate $10.00 – above and beyond the usual request? (If the person refuses, immediately add the following:) Would you be willing to make a $1.00 donation instead?
(4) Even a penny will help condition: Hi. The students in one of my classes are trying to raise money for No Kill LA Animal Shelter. Would you be willing to make a $1.00 donation? Even a penny will help
Experimenters presented professional appearance by use of a No Kill LA Animal Shelter name tag and data folder with printed flyer. Following a donation, subjects were debriefed and told what condition they took part in and given the option of having their money returned or go towards the No Kill LA Animal Shelter. This process was repeated for each condition twice, whereby it was presented a donation jar with and without money in the jar (Second IV). Data was recorded based on donation amount, donation, condition, and order.
Results
A one-way analysis of variance showed that there were no significant differences between the groups in the amount of money people donated, F(3, 188) = 0.92, p = .433. Therefore, the average number of donations was not significantly higher in the Low-ball condition (M=1.06, SD = 2.95). We found the percent of individuals who gave a donation was significantly higher in the penny condition in comparison to other conditions. Specifically, it was found that in the control condition 40% of subjects donated, in the Low-ball condition 48% of subjects donated, in the Door-in-the-face condition 29% of subjects donated, and in the Penny condition 56% of subjects donated. A chi-square test of independence was performed to examine the relation between percentage donated and condition. The relation between these variables was significant, χ2(df = 1) = 4.42, p = .035. According to a one-way ANOVA, there was a significant difference between the full jar condition and the empty jar condition in the amount of money people donated, F(1, 190) = 7.21, p = .008. Therefore, people will donated more when there is a money jar with money in it (M=1.21, SD=2.61) compared to when there is an empty money jar (M=.45, SD=.87).
Discussion
We found that more individuals will give donations in the Even a Penny condition than the other conditions and people will donate more when there is a money jar with money in it compared to when there is an empty money jar. However, we expected that the low-ball strategy would lead to a higher amount of dollars donated than the other three conditions, but results showed no significant differences between the groups in the amount of money people donated. Undergraduate students were the only samples used of the experiment, so they shared common characteristics. For example, most undergraduate students do not have jobs, so they cannot afford to donate money. Due to the limited samples that share common characteristics, we did not obtain the results we expected. Also, No Kill LA was unfamiliar charity to most people, so participants might think that this charity was not real. Therefore, further work is required to use more famous charity and use varieties of samples, such as variety in age range and occupations, the results could be different from our experiment.
