Theory and Tactics Essay

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Theory and Tactics Essay Latoria McCloud Ottawa University

Theory and Tactics Essay Introduction

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When we are trying to achieve the unthinkable, we will do anything to reach that goal. It could be anything from being a professor at Harvard, a CEO of a major company, or even the next biggest star in the music industry. Whatever the case may be, we always say just let us get our foot in the door and once that foot is in the door were even closer to that goal or the unthinkable to others. Our own self- perception can help with this achievement of the foot in the door (FITD) tactics. Body What exactly is self-perception and how effective is it in the foot in the door tactics? Self-Perception theory is when people come to know about their attitudes, emotions, and other internal states by inferring them from their own behavior (Gass & Seiter 2011). A great example of this would be your indulging in a lot of Mexican food and we notice we want this for every meal. We will come to the conclusion that we have a favorable attitude towards this type of food. This in return means we used our behavior to conclude our attitude. A lot of times we meaning ourselves wonder how effective certain things are. We hear all the time about the foot in the door tactics, but how effective is it especially if using the selfperception theory. According to Gorassini, and Olson the dominant indeed, almost universal explanation of the FITD phenomenon has been a self-perception account. According to this view, doing someone a small favor stimulates a correspondent self-inference the favor-doer comes to view him or her as helpful or perhaps as compliant and this self-perception change is responsible for the increase in further compliance. This tells us how the self-perception starts just being asked by someone to do a favor and depending on the favor determines the outcome of

Theory and Tactics Essay

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FITD tactics. When wanting to figure to out how effective the self-perception can be with the FITD tactics, you have to first make sure you went through the check list, once youve done that then the FITD tactics along with self-perception should be very effective. According to Gass and Seiter there are about seven different things you should make sure of when approaching the FITD.1) Size of the initial request: making sure the request is neither too large nor too small, the first request should be sufficient enough to get your foot in the door but not to large it will get declined. 2) Prosocialness of the request: FITD tactics is more effective when used for prosocial causes rather than self-serving reasons. 3) External incentives to comply: people will be less susceptible to the FITD tactic if they are offered external incentives for complying with the first request. 4) Who makes the requests: for the FITD to work the same person needs to make both the initial request and the follow-up request. 5) Labeling: If you label what youre trying to request the person will most likely comply with future request this goes along with the self-perception theory. 6) Preference for consistency: If you agree to an initial request, you should be motivated to behave consistently by agreeing with the second request. Lastly 7) Self-concept clarity: People with higher self-concept clarity are more likely to comply with the FITD tactic then people who have a fuzzier concept. Following through with all the steps shows how effective FITD tactics can be along with self-perception. A great way to show how this works is when you have an idea like a fundraiser and you dont have much money for it to get started. You want to host a play and some of the proceeds will go to help out different charities. So you have to get a place to have the play so you would need to use your self-perception along with FITD tactics to get a building to allow you to have this play for next to nothing or free. This was something that my friend was trying to do; she had

Theory and Tactics Essay

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to figure out her approach to different places. If she would have known all the different strategies and techniques to use I believe that she would have had a great idea to get her FITD.

Theory and Tactics Essay References

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Gass, R. H., & Seiter, J. S. (2011). Persuasion, social influence, and compliance gaining. (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Gorassini, D. R., & Olson, J. M. (n.d.). (1995). Retrieved from http://www.econ.kuleuven.ac.be/public/ndbae50/index_files/Les/Les 10042008/91.pdf