Low-Ball and Compliance to a Request: An Application in a Field Setting

The low-ball refers to a compliance technique in which a demand of someone to agree to a request is followed by telling the person the real cost of the request. The number of people who maintain their first decision is larger than the number in the condition in which the real cost of the request is stated prior to the initial compliance. Researches in this paradigm traditionally included a request addressed by a professor to students but was never tested between strangers. So, an experiment was carried out in which people were solicited to keep a dog (8 kg) on a lead until a male confederate returned from a visit to someone in a hospital. In low-ball condition, the confederate told the subject who agreed to the request that it would take 30 min., whereas in the control condition the confederate gave this information when stating his request. Analysis showed that low-ball technique leads people to maintain their first decision.