Say please: The effect of the word "please" in compliance-seeking requests

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Michael W. Firmin
Janine M. Helmick
Brian A. Iezzi
Aaron Vaughn
Cite this article:  Firmin, M., Helmick, J., Iezzi, B., & Vaughn, A. (2004). Say please: The effect of the word "please" in compliance-seeking requests. Social Behavior and Personality: An international journal, 32(1), 67-72.


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This study reports the results of an experiment examining whether presenting a request that included the word "please" would facilitate greater compliance than would a request that did not include the word please. We hypothesized that the plead request (incorporating the word please) would elicit higher rates of compliance than would a nonplead request. Participants consisted of 165 male and 139 female undergraduates, aged 18-24, from a private, comprehensive university in the Midwest of the USA. Participants were surveyed by 8 callers, trained to uniformly verbalize the requests for compliance. Results showed that a greater proportion of participants in the nonplead condition complied than did in the plead condition (χ2 = 6.432, df = 1, p < 0.05). The implications of this analysis are discussed.

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