Operationalizations of the “but you are free” technique with the word liberty and the Statue of Liberty symbol on clothes: effects on compliance-gaining
Abstract
The “but you are free” (BYAF) technique is a verbal compliance procedure which solicits people to comply with a request by telling them that they are free to accept or to refuse the request. This technique is based on the semantic evocation of freedom. In two studies, we explored another operationalization of this paradigm: the word “liberty” or a “Statue of Liberty” picture on the experimenter's clothes. The data showed that the word liberty printed on a t-shirt produced the BYAF effect whereas the Statue of Liberty picture did not. These results provide some evidence consistent with using reactance and commitment theories to explain the paradigm, contrary to other theoretical interpretations proposed in the literature such as politeness and reciprocity theories.