IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pot/cepadp/07.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

”Thanks in Advance”: The Negative Effect of a Polite Phrase on Compliance with a Request

Author

Listed:
  • Lisa Bruttel

    (University of Potsdam)

  • Lisa Juri Nithammer

    (University of Potsdam)

  • Florian Stolley

    (University of Potsdam)

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of the commonly used phrase “thanks in advance” on compliance with a small request. In a controlled laboratory experiment we ask participants to give a detailed answer to an open question. The treatment variable is whether or not they see the phrase “thanks in advance.” Our participants react to the treatment by exerting less effort in answering the request even though they perceive the phrase as polite.

Suggested Citation

  • Lisa Bruttel & Lisa Juri Nithammer & Florian Stolley, 2019. "”Thanks in Advance”: The Negative Effect of a Polite Phrase on Compliance with a Request," CEPA Discussion Papers 07, Center for Economic Policy Analysis.
  • Handle: RePEc:pot:cepadp:07
    DOI: 10.25932/publishup-42770
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.25932/publishup-42770
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.25932/publishup-42770?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lisa Bruttel & Florian Stolley, 2018. "Gender Differences in the Response to Decision Power and Responsibility—Framing Effects in a Dictator Game," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-16, May.
    2. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    3. James Andreoni & Justin M. Rao & Hannah Trachtman, 2017. "Avoiding the Ask: A Field Experiment on Altruism, Empathy, and Charitable Giving," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(3), pages 625-653.
    4. Supphellen, Magne & Nelson, Michelle R., 2001. "Developing, exploring, and validating a typology of private philanthropic decision making," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 573-603, October.
    5. Paolo Crosetto & Antonio Filippin, 2013. "The “bomb” risk elicitation task," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 31-65, August.
    6. Mohlin, Erik & Johannesson, Magnus, 2008. "Communication: Content or relationship?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 409-419, March.
    7. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1991. "Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 24-52, Special I.
    8. Andreoni, James & Rao, Justin M., 2011. "The power of asking: How communication affects selfishness, empathy, and altruism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 513-520.
    9. Ernst Fehr & John A. List, 2004. "The Hidden Costs and Returns of Incentives-Trust and Trustworthiness Among CEOs," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(5), pages 743-771, September.
    10. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    11. Thomas, Jonathan & Worrall, Tim, 1990. "Income fluctuation and asymmetric information: An example of a repeated principal-agent problem," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 367-390, August.
    12. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    13. Sanders, Michael & Smith, Sarah, 2016. "Can simple prompts increase bequest giving? Field evidence from a legal call centre," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 179-191.
    14. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    15. Brennan, Linda & Binney, Wayne, 2010. "Fear, guilt, and shame appeals in social marketing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 140-146, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bruttel, Lisa & Stolley, Florian, 2020. "Getting a yes. An experiment on the power of asking," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    2. Peter Katuscak & Tomas Miklanek, 2018. "Do Fixed-Prize Lotteries Crowd Out Public Good Contributions Driven by Social Preferences?," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp617, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    3. Daniel Woods & Maroš Servátka, 2019. "Nice to you, nicer to me: Does self-serving generosity diminish the reciprocal response?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(2), pages 506-529, June.
    4. Hopp, Daniel & Süß, Karolin, 2024. "How altruistic is indirect reciprocity? — Evidence from gift-exchange games in the lab," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    5. Sauermann, Jan & Beckmann, Paul, 2019. "The influence of group size on distributional fairness under voting by veto," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 90-102.
    6. Schmidt, Robert J., 2019. "Do injunctive or descriptive social norms elicited using coordination games better explain social preferences?," Working Papers 0668, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    7. Kai Barron, 2021. "Belief updating: does the ‘good-news, bad-news’ asymmetry extend to purely financial domains?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 31-58, March.
    8. Regina Anselm & Deepti Bhatia & Urs Fischbacher & Jan Hausfeld, 2022. "Blame and Praise: Responsibility Attribution Patterns in Decision Chains," TWI Research Paper Series 126, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    9. Festré, Agnès & Garrouste, Pierre, 2014. "Somebody may scold you! A dictator experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 141-153.
    10. Fellner-Röhling, Gerlinde & Hromek, Kristijan & Kleinknecht, Janina & Ludwig, Sandra, 2023. "Reciprocal reactions to (in)transparent task assignments: An experimental investigation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    11. Beekman, Gonne & Cheung, Stephen L. & Levely, Ian, 2017. "The effect of conflict history on cooperation within and between groups: Evidence from a laboratory experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 168-183.
    12. Despoina Alempaki & Andrew M. Colman & Felix Kölle & Graham Loomes & Briony D. Pulford, 2022. "Investigating the failure to best respond in experimental games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(2), pages 656-679, April.
    13. Friehe, Tim & Utikal, Verena, 2018. "Intentions under cover – Hiding intentions is considered unfair," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 11-21.
    14. Brosig-Koch, Jeannette & Heinrich, Timo & Sterner, Martin, 2023. "Bilateral communication in procurement auctions," MPRA Paper 117612, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Peeters, Ronald & Vorsatz, Marc, 2021. "Simple guilt and cooperation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    16. Boosey, Luke & Goerg, Sebastian, 2020. "The timing of discretionary bonuses – effort, signals, and reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 254-280.
    17. Jeannette Brosig-Koch & Thomas Riechmann & Joachim Weimann, 2017. "The dynamics of behavior in modified dictator games," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(4), pages 1-18, April.
    18. Andrea F. M. Martinangeli & Lisa Windsteiger, 2021. "Last word not yet spoken: a reinvestigation of last place aversion with aversion to rank reversals," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(3), pages 800-820, September.
    19. Natalia Montinari & Antonio Nicolò & Regine Oexl, 2016. "The gift of being chosen," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(2), pages 460-479, June.
    20. Kai Barron & Robert Stüber & Roel van Veldhuizen, 2022. "Moral Motive Selection in the Lying-Dictator Game," CESifo Working Paper Series 9911, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    labor compliance behavior; gratitude; reciprocity; experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pot:cepadp:07. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Marco Winkler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cepotde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.