Fifteen Years of Foot-in-the Door Research

Beaman, Arthur L.; Cole, C. Maureen; Preston, M.R.; Klentz, Bonnel; Steblay, Nancy K.

doi:10.1177/0146167283092002

Cited by 189 publications

(121 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Requesting them to spend precious time on discussing a sensitive topic for research purpose was expected to be met with resistance. In order to alleviate suspiciousness and encourage cooperation, several 'foot in the door' techniques (Freedman & Fraser, 1966;Beaman et al, 1983;Dillard et al, 1984) were used. Reaching participants was made by phone, an immediate channel (mail requests were found to be totally ineffective).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing “challenging” teachers

Yariv

Coleman

2005

International Journal of Educational Management

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the ways in which elementary school principals in Israel deal with teachers who are “challenging” in their behaviour, that is those who are perceived as under‐performing. This is an important and under‐researched area of educational management.Design/methodology/approachInterviews were carried out with 40 elementary school principals, every fourth school being sampled in the northern district of Haifa. They were asked to recall a particularly difficult teacher and their shortcomings and then asked about the measures they took, in chronological order, to solve the problem.FindingsThe findings indicated that the principals preferred supportive measures or making changes to the organization rather than confronting the teachers. More than half the principals had started by ignoring the difficulties. In the end most did discuss the situation with the teacher and that sometimes involved direct criticism. In half of the cases the teacher left the school by the end of the year.Research implications/limitationsThe research findings are limited as they only relate to the views of the principals, leading to the possibility of researcher empathy with the principals. Further research might investigate the teachers perspective.Practical implicationsFrom a practical point‐of‐view, the current findings indicate that elementary school principals need to be better equipped with knowledge, managerial skills and sources of assistance to solve personnel difficulties.Originality/valueThis paper adds to the limited literature on the subject of under‐performing teachers and reveals the resulting personnel difficulties faced by principals.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing “challenging” teachers

Yariv

Coleman

2005

International Journal of Educational Management

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“…Indeed, different meta-analyses of a line of research sometimes use different moderators to explain variability (e.g., for FITD and DITF techniques, the results of Dillard et al might be compared with the results of Beaman, Cole, Preston, Klentz, & Steblay, 1983, or Fern, Monroe, & Avila, 1986. Hence the fact that a given moderator set "explains all the variance" is no reason to think that no other moderator set could do so.…”

Section: The Empirical Evidence Of Message-by-treatment Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Messages as replications: Toward a message‐centered design strategy

Jackson¹,

O’Keefe

Jacobs³

et al. 1989

Communication Monographs

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“…The FITD technique is viewed by many social psychologists as a highly versatile strategy that has been used to gain compliance in many situations, including increasing donations to charities (Guéguen & Jacob, 2001), completing mail-in surveys (Cialdini, Trost, & Newsom, 1995), increasing volunteerism (Guadagno, Asher, Demaine, & Cialdini, 2001), and agreeing to become an organ donor (Carducci, Deuser, Bauer, Large, & Ramaekers 1989). Nearly five decades of research and over 100 studies revealed that the FITD technique is reliable in gaining compliance (Beaman, Cole, Preston, Klentz, & Steblay, 1983;Burger 1999;Dillard, Hunter, & MR. BIG TECHNIQUE 11 Burgoon, 1984;Fern, Monroe, & Avila, 1986;Pascual & Guéguen, 2005). Within a Mr. Big operation, the target becomes committed to the organization by agreeing to complete very small jobs initially, such as transporting goods from one location to another.…”

Section: Six Reasons Why the Mr Big Technique Is Inherently Flawedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting the Mr. Big technique back on trial: a re-examination of probative value and abuse of process through a scientific lens

Luther

Snook

2016

Journal of Forensic Practice

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A recent Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruling resulted in stricter rules being placed on how police organizations can obtain confessions through a controversial undercover operation, known as the Mr. Big technique. The SCC placed the onus on prosecutors to demonstrate that the probative value of any Mr. Big derived confession outweighs its prejudicial effect, and that the police must refrain from an abuse of process (i.e., avoid overcoming the will of the accused to obtain a confession). We argue that a consideration by the SCC of the social influence tactics used to elicit confessions -because such tactics sully the circumstances preceding confessions and verge on abuse of process -should lead to all Mr. Big operations being prohibited. Keywords A Re-Examination of Probative Value and Abuse of Process through a Scientific LensPolice investigators are sometimes faced with instances where they are, for whatever reason, unable to solve serious crimes (e.g., lack of evidence, no confession). In response to such circumstances, some police organizations have employed elaborate undercover operations that circumvent the rules of custodial interrogations (i.e., where the suspect is formally detained in police custody). One type of undercover operation used to tackle such difficult cases in Canada is known as the major crime homicide technique -known colloquially as the Mr. Big technique (RCMP, 2011). In a recent Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruling (R. v. Hart, 2014), stricter rules were placed on how police organizations can obtain confessions using this technique.In the current article, we outline what is known about the Mr. Big technique and discuss the recent SCC ruling. We then review six powerful social influence tactics identified by Cialdini (2007) -reciprocity, consistency, liking, social proof, authority, and scarcity -for achieving compliance, and argue that each tactic is a sine qua non of Mr. Big operations. We also argue that the use of these tactics negates the probative value of all Mr. Big confessions and verges on an abuse of process. We conclude that it is impossible to envision the elicitation of an admissible confession from any Mr. Big operation.

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Fifteen Years of Foot-in-the Door Research

Cited by 189 publications

References 35 publications

Managing “challenging” teachers

Managing “challenging” teachers

Messages as replications: Toward a message‐centered design strategy

Putting the Mr. Big technique back on trial: a re-examination of probative value and abuse of process through a scientific lens

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