Self-regulation, heuristics and compliance : a deeper insight in the underlying process of sequential request techniques

Is self-regulation a limited resource and can depleting this resource prompt a greater willingness to comply with a request, by relying on heuristics? Across two lab experiments, we examined this process, guided by a recent two-stage model which tends to give an explanation for the underlying process. In study 1, participants who had to answer cognitively demanding questions of a foot-in-the-door script, had less regulatory resources left and showed a greater willingness to comply with a target request. In experiment 2, more evidence was found for the two-stage model by replicating the results of experiment 1. Finally, participants in study 2 were motivated to use all of their regulatory resources on subsequent tasks. This induced motivation moderated the effect of depletion on the presented target requests, resulting in a greater willingness to comply.