Glossary · Commitment and Consistency
Low-Ball Technique
Want to know how the Low-Ball 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 lowballing, commitment then cost.
The definition
What is the Low-Ball Technique?
It is built on commitment and consistency, one of the seven principles of influence Dr. Robert Cialdini identified in more than 40 years of research.
Once people commit to a decision, they tend to stick with it even after its cost rises.
People take the Influence Assessment to learn which principles they lean on, and where they lose people.
Here is how it works:
The low-ball technique secures a commitment on attractive terms, then changes the terms after the decision is made. People who have committed often keep to the decision anyway, because they have generated their own reasons for it and those reasons survive the change.
The study behind it
The 7 a.m. experiment
Cialdini, Cacioppo, Bassett and Miller, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1978
Students were asked to take part in a psychology study. For some, the request stated from the outset that the session would begin at 7 a.m. Others were told the early start only after they had already agreed to take part. Students in the second group were more likely to agree and more likely to turn up at 7 a.m., even though they had been free to change their minds.
Where you'll see it
How to recognize the Low-Ball 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: The research explains why a changed price or deadline after agreement so often goes unchallenged, which is exactly why it is a technique to recognize and resist.
How to use it
How to use the Low-Ball Technique ethically.
Here is how to use it ethically:
This is one of the techniques Dr. Cialdini describes chiefly so people can defend themselves against it. Changing the terms after a commitment is a misuse of consistency, not an application of it.
Learn it in depth. The Cialdini Method gives commitment and consistency a full module, online and at your own pace.
Discover more
Find out where you stand on commitment and consistency.
How strongly do you use commitment and consistency?
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.