Abstract
The “but you are free” (BYAF) technique is a verbal compliance procedure which solicits people to comply with a request by telling them that they are free to accept or to refuse the request. This technique is based on the semantic evocation of freedom. In two studies, we explored another operationalization of this paradigm: the word “liberty” or a “Statue of Liberty” picture on the experimenter's clothes. The data showed that the word liberty printed on a t-shirt produced the BYAF effect whereas the Statue of Liberty picture did not. These results provide some evidence consistent with using reactance and commitment theories to explain the paradigm, contrary to other theoretical interpretations proposed in the literature such as politeness and reciprocity theories.
The “but you are free” (BYAF) technique is a compliance-gaining strategy proposed by Guéguen and Pascual (Citation2000). Its concept is simple: by embellishing a request made to another person with the proposal “you are free to…” one can significantly increase the possibility of acceptance. In their first study, Guéguen and Pascual's (Citation2000) experimenters asked passersby in a street to give them money. In the experimental condition, their request ended with the phrase “but you are free to accept or refuse” whereas this phrase was not used in the control condition. They found that 10% of the solicited participants complied with the request in the control condition, whereas 47.5% complied in the experimental condition. The simple induction of a feeling of freedom can facilitate individual compliance to various types of requests such as donating money, filling out a questionnaire, visiting a website, or even purchasing something (Guéguen & Pascual, Citation2000; Guéguen et al., Citation2013; Guéguen, Pascual, & Dagot, Citation2004; Guéguen, Pascual, Jacob, & Morineau, Citation2002; Pascual & Guéguen, Citation2002). Carpenter (Citation2013) conducted a meta-analysis of 42 studies on the technique and found that it was an effective means of increasing compliance rates in most contexts, regardless of type of request.
Guéguen et al. (Citation2013) proposed several theoretical explanations for these results. First, politeness theory (Brown & Levinson, Citation1987) argued that phrasing one's remark so as to minimize face threat would be more polite. Requests for money or the target's time may threaten the target's freedom of action by pressuring her or him, which application of the theory predicts people will find impolite. The BYAF may reduce that feeling of imposition created by the request by attempting to reduce the amount of pressure and thus the threat to the target's face.
Reciprocity theory (Gouldner, Citation1960) could also explain the technique. Here, the semantic evocation of freedom may be interpreted by the target as reflecting consideration for her or his time and/ or money. Thus, the target may want to reciprocate this consideration by agreeing to the request of the solicitor. Several studies have found that creating a situation in which reciprocity is called for is a good technique to obtain compliance with a request for help (Pascual & Guéguen, Citation2003; Regan, Citation1971) especially from strangers (Boster, Rodríguez, Cruz, & Marshall, Citation1995). With the BYAF technique, the phrase “you are free to accept or to refuse” could be perceived by the target as a concession offered by the solicitor. With this phrase the solicitor gives something to the target (an opportunity to accept or to refuse, the right to decide for himself/herself…) that induced the target to give something else in return: here the only thing she or he could grant would be the request.
Additionally, commitment theory might explain the effectiveness of the BYAF technique. Kiesler and Sakumura (Citation1966) and Kiesler (Citation1971) have stated when people feel an act is more clearly under their volitional control, they will feel a positive attitude toward attitudes consistent with the act. Joule and Beauvois (Citation1998) found that a single phrase stating that the participant is free to comply or not is sufficient to increase the feeling of volition of the participant. Data obtained by Guéguen et al. (Citation2013, experiments 10 and 11) confirm this statement by showing that, at least, three different phrases that state that someone is free to comply (“you are free to accept or to refuse…,” “do not feel obliged…,” “do as you wish…”) are each associated with greater compliance with a request. Moreover, a commitment explanation predicts that the degree of volition perceived by the individual to perform the expected behavior is positively related to the probability of the individual performing the expected act (Kiesler, Citation1971). It also could explain other results obtained by Guéguen et al. (Citation2013, experiments 12 and 13) in which requests with the semantically induced freedom phrase presented twice were associated with greater compliance than when the semantically induced freedom phrase was used only once. The inductions included the same phrase being used twice at different parts of the request (experiment 12) and two different freedom invocation phrases being used in the same request (experiment 13). It is possible that in these experiments, the degree of volition was higher in the double BYAF condition than in the single BYAF condition which was also higher than the control. Such results could be explained by arguing that the degree of volition induced was related to the degree of commitment to perform an expected behavior.
Psychological reactance can also explain the technique. Reactance occurs when someone perceives that his or her freedom of behavior is threatened or restricted. Reactance is aroused in various manners: social pressure to act, financial incentives to comply, or physical dominance. For Brehm (Citation1966) and Brehm and Brehm (Citation1981) reactance creates a negative tension state that motivates the individual to act in order to restore the threatened freedom. So, when someone is solicited to help another person, the solicitation itself can create an aversive tension which could decrease the likelihood of compliance. When using the BYAF, the targets may be substantially less likely to feel that their freedom of behavior is threatened or restricted. Without such an aversive feeling, a higher likelihood of compliance would be obtained as the targets do not feel the need to restore their freedom by refusing. If perceived freedom is a condition for compliance, the felt level of freedom is likely to be higher when the solicitor repeats during the interaction that the target is free to comply which, in turn, leads him or her to comply with the request.
Politeness and reciprocity theories assume that compliance is increased via changes to the targets’ perceptions of the solicitors whereas the commitment and reactance theories do not. The politeness explanation assumes the BYAF causes a change in how the target perceives the politeness of the requester. Reciprocity assumes the targets feel they owe the requester a favor. Commitment and reactance explanations do not require freedom to be associated with the request. Instead, they merely propose that feeling a greater sense of freedom is sufficient to make compliance more likely. So in the two following studies, we operationalized the BYAF technique in situations where reference to freedom is evoked without directly associating freedom with the request itself. To do so, we operationalized the BYAF by the word “liberty” printed on a white t-shirt (Study 1) or by a “Statue of Liberty” picture printed on a badge (Study 2) worn by solicitors. [Indeed, previous studies have shown that some words (Charles-Sire, Guéguen, Pascual, & Meineri, Citation2012) or symbols (Nelissen & Meijers, Citation2011, experiments 2 and 4) printed on a t-shirt could generate compliance.] These inductions will hypothetically produce the feeling of freedom in the targets without the target feeling that the request itself is related to the feeling of freedom.
The two main hypotheses are that (1) if the word “liberty” or a “Statue of Liberty” picture worn by an experimenter produce the BYAF effect, politeness and reciprocity theories will be not be supported; (2) if the word “liberty” or a “Statue of Liberty” picture worn by an experimenter added to a semantic evocation of freedom is more effective on compliance than a single semantic evocation of freedom, commitment and reactance theory will be supported.
Study 1
Method
Participants
The participants were 148 men and 32 women (estimated age range 18–70 years old), walking alone in the street of a town situated on the south coast of Brittany in France (50,000 inhabitants).
Procedure
Two female experimenters (20 years old), during a Sunday afternoon, asked for some change from participants (target request). The first independent variable was the presence of the BYAF technique. In the direct request control condition, the experimenter approached the participant by saying to him or her politely: “Hello, I'm sorry to bother you, I'm getting married in one month but I do not have enough moneys to buy my dress. Would you give something to help me?” In the BYAF condition, she approached the participant in the same way by saying: “Hello, I'm sorry to bother you, I ’m getting married in one month but I do not have enough moneys to buy my dress. You are free to refuse but would you give something to help me?”
The second independent variable was operationalized with an inscription on a white t-shirt. In the “liberty condition,” the word LIBERTE (French word for “liberty”) was printed on the t-shirt. Additionally, two control conditions were tested. In the first, there was no text on the t-shirt. In the second condition, a non-word was printed (BELRETI), composed by the letters of the word LIBERTE. After the interaction, the experimenter recorded if the participant agreed or not to the request and changed the t-shirt every 10 participants.
Results
The frequencies of compliance in each condition are presented in Table . A log linear analysis was conducted and the 2 (direct request or BYAF) × 3 (t-shirt: no text, LIBERTE, or BELRETI) × 2 (participant sexFootnote1) × 2 (compliance: yes or no) design revealed only two significant main effects.
Table 1 Frequencies of participants who complied with the request per condition.
First, in the BYAF condition, 54.4% agreed to the request and 38.9% in the control formulation [χ2(1, 180) = 4.11, p < .04, φ = .15]. Secondly, a main effect of the t-shirt was observed [χ2(2, 180) = 9.26, p < .01, φ = .23]. In the “LIBERTE” condition, 61.7% complied with the request, 33.3% in the “no text” condition, and 45% in the “BELRETI” condition. Pairwise comparisons (Pearson χ2) between all the t-shirts conditions revealed that the “LIBERTE” condition was statistically different than “no text” condition [χ2(1, 120) = 9.66, p < .01, φ = .28] and that the “BELRETI” condition was marginally statistically different than the “LIBERTE” condition [χ2(1, 120) = 3.35, p < .07, φ = .18]. However, the comparison of the “no text” condition and the “BELRETI” condition was not statistically different [χ2(1, 120) = 1.71, ns, φ = .12]. Furthermore, the comparison between the “LIBERTE” condition and the two control conditions combined (no text+BELRETI) is statistically significant [χ2(1, 180) = 8.14, p < .01, φ = .21].
The combined “BYAF verbal request and freedom t-shirt” condition generated the highest compliance rate (70%). Indeed, if we compare this condition with the cumulated data of the “BYAF condition” and the “freedom t-shirt condition,” we obtain a statistically significant effect [χ2(1, 120) = 4.04, p < .04, φ = .18]. No other main effect or interaction between the variables appeared.
Discussion
The results presented above allow us to make several comments. First, Study 1 confirms the classic BYAF effect generally obtained in the literature (Carpenter, Citation2013). Indeed, the semantic evocation of freedom led participants to be more compliant with the target request than a control condition. Second, even though the reference to freedom was not directly associated with the target request, we observed that when the word “LIBERTE” (liberty) was printed on a t-shirt, more compliance was obtained than a no text t-shirt or a t-shirt printed with a French anagram of liberty (“BELRETY”). Third, the combination of the freedom t-shirt and the BYAF request produced the highest compliance rate. This finding suggests an additive effect of the double reference to freedom. A similar result was obtained with the double BYAF effect obtained by Guéguen et al. (Citation2013, experiments 12 and 13).
Finally, from a theoretical point of view, because the word “liberty” on the t-shirts worn by experimenters produced the BYAF effect with an effect size similar to that of the verbal induction, the data were consistent with neither a politeness nor a reciprocity theory explanation of the evoking freedom effect. On the other hand, because the double reference to freedom generates more compliance than the single one, the commitment and reactance theory hypotheses are supported. In the following study, we tried to replicate these effects with another operationalization of a freedom not linked with the target request: the symbol of Statue of Liberty.
Study 2
Method
Participants
The participants were 161 men and 159 women (18–68 years old) addressed alone in the hall of a train station of a town situated in the south of France (240,000 inhabitants).
Procedure
Three male experimenters (21 years old) collected data for this experiment and asked for some change from the participants (target request). The first independent variable was the BYAF technique. In the direct request control condition, the experimenter approached the participant by saying to him or her politely: “Sorry Madam/Sir, do you have some change for the bus, please?” In the BYAF condition, with the same tone the experimenter asked the following request: “Sorry Madam/Sir, do you have some change for the bus, please? But you are free to accept or to refuse.”
The second independent variable was operationalized by a badge worn by the experimenter (10 cm diameter). In the “liberty condition,” the badge represented a picture of the Statue of Liberty (green with a white background). In the control condition, the badge was the same size but was totally white. After each interaction, the experimenter recorded if the participant agreed to the request or not and asked his or her age. Furthermore, he changed the badge every 10 participants.
Results
The frequencies of compliance in each condition are presented in Table . A log-linear analysis was conducted with the 2 (participant sex) × 2 (direct request or BYAF) × 2 (badge: Statue of Liberty or blank) × 2 (compliance: yes or no) design and revealed one marginally significant main effect of the BYAF formulation [χ2(1, 320) = 3.15, p < .08, φ = .10]. In the control condition, 20.6% of participants agreed to the request against 29.4% in the BYAF condition. The effect size is only slightly smaller than the meta-analytic weighted average of φ = .13 (Carpenter, Citation2013). No other main effect or interaction between the variables appeared.
Table 2 Frequencies of participants who complied with the request per condition.
Discussion
Globally, we did not replicate findings of Study 1. Indeed, the BYAF technique was only marginally statistically significant. One explanation is that the location of the study, the hall of a train station, may have affected the results. Perhaps in that place, people were less receptive than in the street to the request because many could have a train near or be stressed by their travel. The compliance rate in the direct request condition was somewhat smaller in Study 2 than in Study 1. These additional stresses may have prevented the participants from looking at the experimenters well enough to notice their badges. Additionally, there are no published reports of the BYAF being tested in a train station. The location may weaken the effectiveness of this induction and perhaps that of other compliance-gaining techniques. Langer, Blank, and Chanowitz (Citation1978) suggested that compliance will be more likely when the target is “mindless” but there may be a minimum threshold of cognitive awareness of the language in the request required for targets to be affected by such techniques.
Concerning the badge of the Statue of Liberty, it is also possible that this symbol of freedom was less explicit than the “liberty” t-shirt used in Study 1. It may be that contrary to our assumptions, the Statue of Liberty refers more to New York City or the USA than to freedom in the minds of our participants. It could explain that why this symbol had no effect on compliance with the target request. This potential ambiguity about the strength of the association between the Statue of Liberty and freedom also suggests that, in general, the freedom induction needs to be sufficiently large for it to affect compliance. The word “freedom” in large letters is perhaps a stronger induction than the Statue of Liberty. Additional research is required to determine how strong the freedom induction must be. Study 1 as well as Guéguen et al.’s (Citation2013, experiments 12 and 13) results show that increasing the strength of the induction produces larger effects, it seems likely that weakening the induction would produce weaker effects.
Conclusion
In order to test the differing explanations of the effectiveness of the BYAF technique, we operationalized evoking freedom in two ways. The first was the usual spoken evocation of freedom in the target request that was likely to be associated with the request itself. Alternatively we also created two freedom inductions that were likely to be dissociated with the target request (the “word freedom” printed on a t-shirt or the symbol of the Statue of Liberty). Results of the two studies indicated that only the printed word reproduced the BYAF effect. It is important to consider that the printed word refers directly to freedom whereas the Statue of Liberty may not and that may explain why this symbol did not affect compliance with the target request. So, a limit of the BYAF technique is that if the reference to freedom is too subtle and indirect (Statue of Liberty) no effect on compliance is observed.
The finding that a simple printed word on a t-shirt affects participant's compliance provides useful information about theories earlier proposed to explain the BYAF technique. Indeed, among politeness (Brown & Levinson, Citation1987) and reciprocity (Gouldner, Citation1960) theories, the BYAF works in reference to the perception of an association target request/solicitor by participants. However, these theories cannot explain why a freedom dissociated from the request (because it was printed on a t-shirt) produced more compliance. In contrast, theories of commitment (Kiesler, Citation1971) and reactance (Brehm, Citation1966) can explain such results but we cannot decide between commitment and reactance interpretations. However, the processes that underlie influence tactics are often polygenetic and a given technique usually involves multiple processes. The BYAF is not likely to be an exception to this pattern and several processes can be evoked to explain the efficiency of this new technique. For example, if evoking freedom reduces the level of reactance to comply with the request, this evocation may also increase commitment to act. In this way, reduced reactance plus increased commitment could explain compliance to the request. So, the double effect of freedom obtained in Study 1 showed that the more participants were confronted with the concept of freedom (semantically+printed word), the more they were committed or less reactant, as suggested by their higher compliance rate. The results of Study 2 are more ambiguous as it remains uncertain if the Statue of Liberty symbol failed to produce the effect because the freedom invocation does actually need to be associated with the request as politeness and reciprocity would suggest or because the Statue of Liberty symbol is too weak of an induction. Additional research is required to continue to unravel the mechanisms by which invoking freedom causes individuals to be more likely to comply with requests. Indeed, future work should be conducted to provide some experimental evidence to determine if measurements of reactance and/or commitment scores differentiate between control and BYAF conditions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. In the analysis of Studies 1 and 2, sex of participant was controlled to be sure that our experimental designs were not affected by this variable.
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