Abstract
People are more likely to comply with a large request when it is preceded by another, smaller request, and this is known as the “foot-in-the-door” (FITD). The FITD has been widely studied in social psychology and is thought to arise from mutually conflicting beliefs about past and present behavior (cognitive dissonance) or changes in self-perception. Across two experiments, we found that pigeons’ latency to respond to an effortful second stimulus in a pair scales with how much effort they had exerted on the first stimulus. As such, pigeons also display a FITD-like effect. We argue that the FITD may not be caused by conflicting beliefs or changes in self-perception but may instead be the product of behavioral contrast.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Catrona Anderson and Max Schmidt for helping with data collection.
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Both experiments were entirely funded by the University of Otago, Department of Psychology.
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The pigeons were kept in accordance with the University of Otago Code of Ethical Conduct for the Manipulation of Animals and the experiment was approved by University of Otago Animal Ethics Committee.
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Bartonicek, A., Colombo, M. Claw-in-the-door: pigeons, like humans, display the foot-in-the-door effect. Anim Cogn 23, 893–900 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-020-01395-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-020-01395-y