Glossary · Reciprocity
Door-in-the-Face Technique
Want to know how the Door-in-the-Face Technique works? Whether you want to use it in your own requests, or spot it when someone uses it on you, you're in the right place.
You'll find the definition, the published study behind it, and ideas for how to use it ethically.
Also called door in the face, rejection-then-retreat, reciprocal concessions.
The definition
What is the Door-in-the-Face Technique?
It is built on reciprocity, one of the seven principles of influence Dr. Robert Cialdini identified in more than 40 years of research.
A large request that is refused, followed by a smaller one, makes the smaller one more likely to be accepted.
People take the Influence Assessment to learn which principles they lean on, and where they lose people.
Here is how it works:
The door-in-the-face technique opens with a large request that is likely to be refused, then retreats to the smaller request that was intended all along. The retreat reads as a concession, and the rule of reciprocity obliges the other person to concede in return, usually by agreeing to the smaller request.
The study behind it
The zoo trip
Cialdini, Vincent, Lewis, Catalan, Wheeler and Darby, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975
Dr. Cialdini and his colleagues asked university students to chaperone a group of juvenile offenders on a two-hour trip to the zoo. Most said no. When the same request came only after the students had refused a much larger one, to serve as an unpaid counsellor for two hours a week for at least two years, the rate of agreement to the zoo trip rose sharply. The retreat from the big request was treated as a concession that deserved one back.
Where you'll see it
How to recognize the Door-in-the-Face Technique.
Spotting it, in your own requests and in other people's, starts with knowing where it tends to show up.
You'll see it in: Negotiations that open with an ambitious proposal, fundraising that asks for a larger gift before a smaller one, pricing that presents a premium tier first.
How to use it
How to use the Door-in-the-Face Technique ethically.
Here is how to use it ethically:
The first request must be genuine. Inventing an outrageous opening purely so the real ask looks reasonable turns a concession into a trick, and it tends to be spotted.
Learn it in depth. The Cialdini Method gives reciprocity a full module, online and at your own pace.
For your role
If you use reciprocity in your work.
Reciprocity works differently depending on who uses it and what is at stake. Pick your role to see how.
Discover more
Find out where you stand on reciprocity.
How strongly do you use reciprocity?
Take the free Influence Assessment to see which of the seven you lean on and where you lose people. Your result is free; the full report is $49.