Underestimation of Compliance
The tendency of people who ask for help to expect fewer yeses than they get, because they undervalue the social cost of refusing.
What it is
Francis Flynn and Vanessa Lake found, across laboratory and field studies, that people asking for help underestimated by up to half how likely others were to agree. Help seekers focused on the effort of helping and overlooked how awkward it is to say no to a direct request. Mahdi Roghanizad and Vanessa Bohns later found that requests made in person drew far more agreement than the same requests by email, while requesters expected no difference.
In effect
In the article on why it is so hard to say no, it shows the other side of the same pressure: refusing is costly enough that askers do better than they expect.
What it does not say
It concerns small, direct requests. It does not say people should feel obliged to agree, and it does not cover large or unreasonable demands.
Sources
- Flynn, F. J., & Lake, V. K. B. (2008). If you need help, just ask: Underestimating compliance with direct requests for help. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(1), 128-143.
- Roghanizad, M. M., & Bohns, V. K. (2017). Ask in person: You're less persuasive than you think over email. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 69, 223-226.