The significance of foot in the door effect

Threshold effect means that once a person accepts a trivial request made by others, in order to avoid cognitive disharmony or give others a consistent impression, it is possible to accept a bigger request. This phenomenon is like climbing the door step by step. It is easier and smoother to climb higher.

Psychologists believe that in general, people are reluctant to accept higher and more difficult requirements because it takes time and effort and is difficult to succeed. On the contrary, people are willing to accept smaller and easier demands. People gradually accept bigger requirements after realizing smaller requirements, which is the influence of "threshold effect" on people. Hong Zicheng also talked about this issue in the Ming Dynasty. He said in "Caigen Tan": "You should not be too strict in attacking evil, but think about it; Teach people not to be too good, but to be obedient. "

This effect was put forward by American social psychologists Friedman and Freese in the field experiment of "no pressure yield-threshold technology" in 1966.

The experiment was carried out like this: the experimenter asked his assistant to go to two residential areas and persuaded people to put up a big placard in front of their house that said "Drive carefully". This request was made directly to the people in the first residential area, but it was rejected by many residents, and only 17% of the requested people were accepted. In the second residential area, it was easy to ask residents to sign a petition in favor of safe driving, and almost all the people who were asked complied with it. A few weeks later, they were asked to put up a vertical card. As a result, the respondents accounted for 55% of the respondents.

In interpersonal communication, when we ask someone to do something bigger and worry that he won't do it, we can ask him to do something similar and smaller first.

The "threshold effect" gives us a lot of inspiration, and it is also applied and used for reference in education. For students with learning difficulties, teachers should not set too high demands on them at once. Instead, they should set a small demand first, as long as it is better than in the past. When students meet this demand, they will gradually put forward higher requirements for them through encouragement, which is often easier for students to accept and strive to achieve. The "threshold effect" contains a kind of educational rationality and wisdom. "Sneak into the night with the wind, moisten things silently", and inadvertently see ingenuity.

According to the "threshold effect", teachers must consider students' psychological development level and students' psychological endurance when setting goals. It is necessary to analyze the current development level of students at different levels, and formulate specific goals at different levels according to the foundation and performance of students with different qualities and abilities, so that students can achieve them through hard work, that is, "jumping up and reaching", so that every student can get the joy of success. Therefore, in the process of education, teachers should combine long-term goals with short-term goals, and decompose the higher goals into several small goals at different levels to arouse students' enthusiasm. Once students achieve a small goal or pass a "small threshold", our educational prospects will be much broader.

For example, if students are required to form good study and living habits, they can first find out their own shortcomings and set a time period (one week, half a month or one month) according to their own problems to form a good habit. Such as "don't lose your temper at will", "hurry up and do things", "listen to others", "don't throw rubbish everywhere", "think hard", "concentrate in class" and "do problems seriously" and so on. In the long run, good study and living habits will naturally come. In addition, the education of "problem students" should be filled with love and joy, seeing their bright spots and development potential, and actively encouraging them. Even a nod of approval, a satisfied smile and a sincere blessing may change their self-confidence, let them see the hope of their own development and grow up actively and healthily. Furthermore, when teachers ask questions in class, they must design questions from easy to deep and from easy to difficult according to the teaching content and students' cognitive rules, and open the door of students' thinking step by step, so as to cultivate students' insatiable pursuit spirit of exploring questions.