ABSTRACT
Persuasive communication is an area of research with perhaps one of the longest histories in the field of communication. One form of persuasive communication research is in the area of compliance-gaining, which is characterized as attempts to gain compliance or agreement from another through interpersonal communication. One method of reviewing a given body of research is to review a given theory, model, or relationship through a traditional meta-analysis. The term meta-analysis simply describes statistical methods used to cumulate study findings across multiple observations. The foot-in-the-door (FITD) technique relies on two sequential messages to gain compliance from a receiver. First, the requester gets a metaphorical foot in the door of the message receiver. A second request is made for compliance that is much larger in its level of commitment. The Dillard, Hunter, and Burgoon study featured in the chapter reviews two special forms of compliance from a series of studies that consider the particular research area of sequential requests for compliance.
