The relationship between the age, preference for consistency and the effectiveness of the foot-in-the-door compliance technique

In the present paper we focus on the significance of individual differences in explaining the effectiveness of social influence, more specifically the sequential request techniques. We discuss the relationship between preference for consistency (PFC) and mechanisms of the compliance procedures based on commitment/consistency rule (CC). We provide rationale for two important notions: (1) that PFC mediates the effectiveness of the foot-in-the-door technique (FITD) and (2) PFC increases with age. Thus we predict that older people could be particularly susceptible to the FITD manipulation. We present our original findings supporting the above mentioned assumptions which as far as we know have not been documented yet in the literature. peerReviewed publishedVersion