"Free to Say No": Evoking Freedom Increased Compliance in Two Field Experiments

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2017-03

Department

Division of Applied Behavioral Sciences

Program

Psychology

Citation of Original Publication

Rights

Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States

Abstract

This research tested the effectiveness of the evoking freedom technique in two field experiments. Participants were asked to either complete a survey (Experiment 1) or to allow a stranger to borrow their mobile phone to make a call (Experiment 2). Half of the requests involved language that evoked freedom (“feel free to say no”). In both experiments, results showed significantly greater compliance in the “feel free to say no” condition.