“Thanks in Advance” - the Negative Effect of a Polite Phrase on Compliance with a Request

DOI

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.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.15456/ger.2021230.122923
Metadata Access https://www.da-ra.de/oaip/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&identifier=oai:oai.da-ra.de:772028
Provenance
Creator Bruttel, Lisa Verena; Nithammer, Juri; Stolley, Florian
Publisher ZBW - Leibniz Informationszentrum Wirtschaft
Publication Year 2021
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY); Download
OpenAccess true
Contact ZBW - Leibniz Informationszentrum Wirtschaft
Representation
Language English
Resource Type Collection
Discipline Design; Fine Arts, Music, Theatre and Media Studies; Humanities