The current president-elect’s choices for people to fill Cabinet positions and ambassadorships may be the most controversial in history, “the most extreme Cabinet ever,” as The New Yorker put it (Glasser, 2024), for many different reasons. Some picks provoke more controversy and greater scrutiny than others (Smith-Schoenwalder, 2024), so much so that attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz withdrew himself from consideration (Gaetz, 2024).

A number of observers have wondered whether Donald Trump is floating out some of the more “outlandish” selections (Wolf, 2024) in order to make other nominees seem less outlandish and more palatable in comparison (Fournier, 2024; Hime, 2024), sometimes referring to this as a bait-and-switch strategy although that term would not be correct. A bait-and-switch would bait the buyer by presenting a wonderful-looking deal, then trick the consumer into buying something of lower quality or higher price instead. Rather, the strategy offhandedly suggested refers to the door-in-the-face technique.

First, note that there is no objective reason to assume that the nominations have followed some complex Machiavellian purpose. And even if door-in-the-face were the plan, not necessarily in this instance but ever at all, does it really make a difference? Is it an effective strategy? Yes and no.

Closed door in corridor outside the Oval Office.

Source: Wikimedia Commons/U.S. Government/Public Domain

A person using the door-in-the-face technique first makes one bigger request they consider likely to get rejected, such as “Can I have a hundred dollars?” Once that door gets slammed on them, they “compromise,” asking for what they really want: “Okay, just forty then?” They expect their counteroffer to seem like a concession that is small and more reasonable in comparison to the original but possibly bogus request (Cialdini et al., 1975; Guéguen, 2014).

One problem with this technique is that once someone tells you “No,” that could prime them to say it again. Sales professionals like to ask customers questions they will answer in the affirmative, even simple things unrelated to the purchases at hand, to prepare them to keep saying, “Yes.”

One influencing factor could be the anchoring effect, a cognitive bias in which a person relies too heavily on the initial information they receive as a point of reference or comparison when evaluating the next information. Anchoring is one kind of heuristic, a mental shortcut that may speed decision-making, sometimes at the cost of accuracy.

In a classic example of this effect, researchers asked some participants whether the Mississippi River is longer or shorter than 500 miles (the low anchor condition, anchoring their estimates to the lower number) and asked others where it is longer or shorter than 5,000 miles (high anchor). Low-anchor participants estimated it to be about 1,000 miles long, and high-anchor participants’ guesses averaged about 2,000, much closer to the actual length of 2,348 miles, as researchers Kahneman and Tversky explained to Zimbardo (1990). If the first request in a door-in-the-face situation anchors the concept of “unreasonable want” to a higher value, then the subsequent, lesser request might seem to fall below its threshold.

Despite studies that have shown the technique to work, others show that it can backfire (Henderson & Burgoon, 2014; Lohyd et al., 2011; Wong & Howard, 2018). Behavioral compliance with this technique is achieved more often with some target requests than others. For example, respondents may become more likely to volunteer to help do something but maybe not to make a monetary donation (Feeley et al., 2012). Meta-analyses of past research studies identify a variety of variables mediating whether this technique works: requester characteristics, beneficiary traits, degree to which requests are prosocial, method of request, time intervals between requests, and whether the size of the concession contrasts enough with the original request (Feeley et al., 2012; O’Keefe & Hale, 2001).

A usually more effective alternative, the foot-in-the-door technique (Freedman & Fraser, 1966), works with people’s preference for consistency and tendency to repeat what they’re already doing (Sénémeaud et al., 2008; Stephan & Menzl, 2019). With it, the requester makes one small request to which they are likely to agree (“Would you hold the door for me?”) and then also makes the bigger target request (“Would you help me carry this?”). We become far more likely to say “Yes” to someone we’ve already said “Yes” to before.

What if the nominator must make many requests, not just one? Door-in-the-face tends to fare poorly with quick successions of requests because it wears people out (“No!” “Yes.” “No!” “Yes.” “No!” “Enh.”), so it should likely be used only a few times in the short series. A long run of persuasive engagements might work better if paced so that each “Yes” can promote the next. The frog supposedly sits in the hottest water only when it is raised a few degrees at a time, not all at once. Each incremental increase adjusts the frog to a new standard.

A foot-in-the-door persuader who must recommend others for numerous political positions, an entire cast’s acting roles, jobs on a large team, or other sets of positions might do best by trotting out the least objectionable nominations first. While landing those easy approvals, the requester gets people in the habit of rubberstamping them, after which the requester can keep pushing the envelope toward incrementally more dubious choices. This may have played a part in the president-elect’s political advancement (Chidley, 2018; McIntosh, 2023; Shaley, 2017; Yoshino & Nagai, 2017) as followers made choices progressively more in line with his goals.

Both door-in-the-face and foot-in-the-door techniques are attempted by persons engaged in persuasive efforts, whether by elected officials out to score political wins or small children who want cookies by the plate full. Evidence may not confirm either to be at play in the current Cabinet nomination process. Then again, when does a single explanation account for the entire pattern of any person’s actions and decisions?