A compliance technique where a small initial request is made first, and once agreed to, a larger request follows. People are more likely to comply with the bigger request because they want to appear consistent with their previous agreement.
The phrase comes from door-to-door salespeople literally placing their foot in the doorway to prevent it from closing. Psychologists Freedman and Fraser formalized this as a compliance technique in 1966, demonstrating how small commitments lead to larger ones.
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