How to Coach Yourself and Others How to Influence, Persuade and Motivate | Page 292

third probability that 600 people will be saved and a two-thirds
probability that no people will be saved. Which of the two programs
would you favor?" Notice that in the wording, the focus was on the "lives
saved." Seventy-two percent of the physicians chose program A over
program B.
The same experiment was conducted again with a different group of
physicians. This time, the focus was on how many people would die:
"Imagine that the United States is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual
Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative
programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the
exact scientific estimates of the programs' consequences are as follows: If
program A is adopted, 400 people will die. If program B is adopted, there
is a one-third probability that nobody will die and a two-thirds probability
that 600 people will die. Which of the two programs would you favor?"
You can see that this scenario is exactly the same as the first, but there
was a dramatic difference in the results. This time, with the shift in focus,
22 percent of the physicians voted for the more conservative plan, plan A,
while 72 percent voted for the risky plan, plan B![4]
Door-in-the-Face
"Door-in-the-face" is one of the most common techniques for
implementing the Rule of Contrast. Basically, an initially large and almost
unreasonable request is made, likely to be declined — hence the "door-inthe-face" as the prospect rejects the proposal. Then a second smaller and
more reasonable request is made. People accept the second request more
readily than if they'd just been asked outright because the relativity
between the two requests makes the second one seems so much better.
The technique is effective because social standards state each concession
must be exchanged with another concession. When you allow a rejection,
it is considered a concession. The person you are persuading will then feel
obligated to agree with your smaller request.
Demonstrating this point, researchers first asked college students to
donate blood every two months for three consecutive years. Requiring a
long-term commitment of not only time, but also of physical and
emotional responsibility, the request was overwhelmingly turned down.
When a day later the same students were asked to donate blood just one
time — on the following day — 49 percent agreed. The control group,
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