European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 7, Number 1 (2008)

An Application of the Foot-in-the-Door Strategy in the

Environmental Field

Sébastien Meineri
Université de Bretagne-Sud, UFR LSHS, C.R.P.C.C. – laboratoire L.E.S.T.I.C
E-mail: sebastienmeineri@yahoo.fr

Nicolas Guéguen
Université de Bretagne-Sud, UFR LSHS, C.R.P.C.C. – laboratoire L.E.S.T.I.C
E-mail: nicolas.gueguen@univ-ubs.fr

Abstract
The purpose of the present experiment was to incite people to take part in a costly energy-
saving project in terms of time, energy, and even money. Using the Freedman and Frazer
(1966) Foot-in-the-Door (FITD) strategy by telephone then mail, or a strategy based simply
on information/persuasion (mail), 59 people were contacted. The results showed a positive
effect for the FITD strategy: households who accepted to comply with an initial request by
phone (answering a questionnaire) were more likely to accept the target request than
households who simply received the request in the mail. Results are discussed in reference
to Bem’s self perception theory (1972), and help to envisage future applications on a large
scale.

Keywords: Foot-in-the-door, Precall/mail manipulation, Environment

1. Introduction
In France, as in other occidental countries, considerations regarding environmental protection have
become quite important over the last ten years. Consequently, several projects are developed to spread
awareness and induce changes on the behavior of the population.
The present research was applied in an energy-saving project: the Econ’Home project. This
project is based on volunteering and permits people to receive an at-home visit from a technician to
learn how to save energy through behavioral changes, technical changes or both.
Since this environmentally friendly plan would last for over two years, implying several visits,
and strong commitment, it could be very costly in terms of time, energy and even money for the
participants. Thus, volunteer recruitment would seem quite difficult.
The purpose of the present study was to apply the Foot-in-the-Door strategy (Freedman &
Frazer 1966) to incite households to participate.

2. Background of the Research

According to Freedman and Frazer, the FITD strategy consists of asking people to carry out a small
request before asking them to complete the target one. Results show that in this case, people were more
likely to accept costly requests. In their first experiment, the researchers used the FITD strategy to
incite people to implant a large ugly sign which said “drive slowly” in their gardens. The results
showed that, for the FITD condition, acceptance rates were five times higher than for the control
condition.
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Since this experiment, the FITD strategy has been applied in many different fields, including
charitable donation, social aid, citizen behavior, surveys, and marketing, as well as in several different
contexts, e.g. face to face, telephone, mail and e-mail and has often shown positive effect. (Burger,
1999; Cialdini, 2004).
In the present study, this strategy was applied by precall and then by mail. Precall or
prenotification is often used by survey investigators (Faria, Dickinson & Filipic, 1990; Weather,
Furlong & Solòrzano, 1993; Dillman, 2000; Trussel &Lavakras, 2004) to increase response rates and,
according to the Fox, Crask & Kim (1988) meta-analysis, had the most effect on return rate.
However, this procedure, as far as we know, has never been used by precall then mail for a
costly request, and even less for an environmental energy-saving request.

3. Hypothesis
We make the assumption that households who accept a first request proposed by phone will be more
likely to accept a costly request proposed by mail.

4. Research Methodology
4.1. Sample
The sample consists of 59 households from a small town in Brittany (north-west of France) recruited
from the directory of the town. Households were randomly assigned to either the control or the
experimental condition. As we test the strategy on households, information about gender and age of the
participants were not reported.

4.2. Procedure
In the experimental condition, households were called at home. After having introduced himself and
his organization “Conseil local de l’énergie”, the experimenter asked people to answer a short
questionnaire on environmental protection. The items on the questionnaire were ten positive or
negative statements about environmental knowledge, control of the state of the environment, and
actions and intentions of action in support of the good condition of the environment. Participants
answered by rating every item over a range from 1 = “I disagree with the statement” to 7 = “I agree
with the statement”. At the end of the questionnaire, people were thanked.
About eight days later, people received a letter containing a flyer outlining the project, with a
cover letter from the mayor of the town encouraging them to participate.
In the control group, people were not previously contacted by phone but just received the letter
by mail. Finally, about ten days later, all individuals were called and asked if they had received the
letter and if they had thought about taking part in the project.
Our specific hypothesis is that households which agreed to answer the questionnaire by phone
would show more intention in taking part in the project than households which were not previously
contacted for the questionnaire by phone.

4.3. Dependent variable

The dependent variable was the number of participants who were considering taking part in the project,
which only included subjects who answered something like: “Yes, I am going to send the document.”
or “I have just sent the document.”

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5. Results
Out of the 59 households at the beginning, 19 were not taken into account for the statistical analysis:
11 in the experimental group (six were eliminated because they refused to answer the questionnaire, as
well as five others because they did not satisfy the selection criterion of the project of being a
homeowner for over a period of one year), along with eight households in the control group which did
not satisfy the homeowner criterion.
Finally, after verifying that the expected cell count was more than 5 (Cochran, 1954; Weiss,
1999), a Chi-square analysis was conducted on 40 households. Results showed a positive effect of the
FITD strategy with precall, then mail manipulation. More participants in the experimental condition
considered taking part in the project (52, 38%; 11/21) than in the control group (21 %; 4/19); X², (40) =
4, 18; p =.041). As the sample of participants was weak, Fisher’s exact test was applied on the data to
corroborate the Chi-square analysis. The results were significant (p = .042)

Figure 1: Positives Intention rates to take part in the project depending on the condition

60
Control condition
50
FITD condition
40

30

20

10

6. Discussion and Conclusion

This result suggests the positive effect of the foot-in-the-door strategy specifically using a precall, then
mail context for a costly environmental request. In accordance with our hypothesis, households who
answered the questionnaire proposed by phone were more likely to take part in the project proposed by
mail.
Moreover, it supported Bem’s self perception theory (Bem, 1972) in which it is proposed that
individuals become aware of their attitudes through interpretations they make about their own behavior
and the causes of their acts. Although this theory is often used to explain the FITD effect, experimental
results are less homogenous, and more researchers tend to take this explanation as a part of the effect of
the FITD paradigm (Burger, 1999). Due to the fact that in this experiment, the first and the second
requester were not the same person, and that the target request was administered by mail, it seems that
people in the experimental condition had inferred from their first behavior that they had a favorable
attitude towards environment protection. This can explain why more people in the experimental group
than those in the control group wanted to take part in the project.
To conclude, this experiment showed that a FITD effect could be obtained with a precall then
mail manipulation for costly requests and therefore could possibly be applied on a large scale.

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