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IB DP Psychology — Sociocultural Approach | SL & HL | Paper 1
🎯 Learning Intentions By the end of this note, you will be able to:
- Define compliance, the foot-in-the-door technique, the door-in-the-face technique, and the low-ball technique using IB-aligned terminology.
- Explain the psychological mechanisms — including commitment, reciprocity, and cognitive dissonance — that underpin each compliance technique.
- Describe the conditions under which each technique is most effective and the social contexts in which they are typically applied.
- Evaluate research evidence for compliance techniques using supporting and opposing studies in ACAS format.
- Apply compliance technique concepts to a real-world case study from the sociocultural perspective.
- Discuss the extent to which compliance techniques provide a complete explanation of social influence on behaviour.
- Analyse compliance research using relevant concept areas: Bias, Causality, Perspective, and Responsibility.
Introduction & Context
Think about the last time someone asked you for a favour. Perhaps it started small — a friend asked you to sign a petition, and a week later they asked you to volunteer at an event. Or maybe a salesperson quoted you a price, and by the time you had mentally committed to buying, the final cost turned out to be higher. In both cases, something subtle happened: your behaviour was being shaped not by force or authority, but by a carefully structured sequence of requests.
This is the territory of compliance — a form of social influence in which a person changes their behaviour in response to a direct request from another person, without necessarily changing their underlying beliefs or attitudes. Unlike conformity, which involves adjusting to group norms, or obedience, which involves following orders from an authority figure, compliance is about responding to requests. What makes it psychologically fascinating is that certain sequences of requests are far more effective than others — and researchers have identified specific techniques that exploit predictable features of human psychology to dramatically increase the likelihood that someone will say yes.
🪜 Analogy — The Foot in the Door Imagine a door-to-door salesperson. If they immediately ask you to buy a £500 vacuum cleaner, you are likely to say no and close the door. But if they first ask you to accept a free brochure, then a small demonstration, then a trial period — by the time the big request arrives, you have already opened the door, both literally and psychologically. Each small yes makes the next yes feel more consistent with who you already are. Compliance techniques work precisely because humans have a deep need to appear — and feel — consistent.
Core Concepts
Before examining individual techniques, it is worth asking: why do people comply at all? Humans are social beings, and social life requires cooperation. We have evolved psychological tendencies — toward consistency, reciprocity, and the avoidance of cognitive discomfort — that generally serve us well. Compliance techniques are effective precisely because they exploit these tendencies in structured, deliberate ways. Understanding each technique means understanding which psychological mechanism it targets.
📖 Key Definition — Compliance Compliance is a form of social influence in which an individual changes their behaviour in response to a direct request from another person or group, without necessarily