Many failed replications in social psychology have cast doubt on the validity of the field. Most of these replication attempts have focused on findings published from the 1990s on, ignoring a large body of older literature. As some scholars suggest that social psychological findings and theories are limited to a particular time, place, and population, we sought to test whether a classical social psychological finding that was published nearly half a century ago can be successfully replicated in another country on another continent. To this end, we directly replicated Cialdini et al.'s (1975) door-in-the-face (DITF) technique according to which people's likelihood to comply with a target request increases after having turned down a larger request. Thereby, we put the reciprocal concessions theorythe original process explanation of the DITF technique-to a critical test. Overall, compliance rates in our replication were similarly high as those Cialdini et al. (1975) found 45 years ago. That is, participants were more likely to comply with a target request after turning down an extreme request than participants who were exposed to the target request only or to a similarly small request before being exposed to the target request. These findings support the idea that reciprocity norms play a crucial role in DITF strategies. Moreover, the results suggest that at least some social psychological findings can transcend a particular time, place, and population. Further theoretical implications are discussed.

Background The COVID-19 lockdowns have led to social detriments and altered learning environments among university students. Recent research indicates that such ramifications may engender various impairments to students’ mental health. However, such research has major limitations, such as the lack of a prepandemic control measure, the focus on singular well-being parameters, or the investigation of only the early phases of the pandemic. Objective To address these research gaps, this comprehensive and nationwide study compared 3 student cohorts (aged 17-48 years) in Germany: a prepandemic cohort (January-February 2020), a postlockdown cohort (May 2020-July 2020), and an intralockdown cohort (January-February 2021) regarding students’ general emotional well-being and academic functioning. It was hypothesized that, because of rigorous lockdown-related restrictions, students in the intralockdown cohort would report diminished general emotional well-being compared with the other cohorts. Furthermore, because of ongoing remote learning since the beginning of the pandemic, it was expected that students’ academic functioning would decrease across all 3 cohorts. Methods The data collection was performed over 3 consecutive semesters (fall semester 2019-2020, spring semester 2020, and fall semester 2020-2021). Students were surveyed on the web on various aspects regarding their general emotional well-being (eg, stress and general well-being) and academic functioning (eg, concentration and study-related flow). Data analyses were performed using multivariate ANOVAs. Results A total of 787 students participated in this study. Results indicated higher general well-being in the postlockdown cohort than in the intralockdown cohort (P=.02). As for students’ academic functioning, our results revealed that students in the prepandemic cohort reported higher study-related flow (P=.007) and concentration (P=.001) than those in the intralockdown cohort. In addition, students reported higher flow (P=.04) and concentration (P=.04) in the postlockdown cohort than those in the intralockdown cohort. No cohort effects were revealed for other aspects of general emotional well-being (eg, perceived stress) and academic functioning (eg, procrastination). Conclusions This study indicates that students’ general emotional well-being as well as motivational and attentional components of academic functioning can be impaired owing to the COVID-19 lockdowns and ongoing remote learning formats. The necessity and design of interventional programs remedying such effects in light of the ongoing crisis need to be addressed.

Many failed replications in social psychology have cast doubt on the validity of the field. Most of these replication attempts have focused on findings published from the 1990s on, ignoring a large body of older literature. As some scholars suggest that social psychological findings and theories are limited to a particular time, place, and population, we sought to test whether a classical social psychological finding that was published nearly half a century ago can be successfully replicated in another country on another continent. To this end, we directly replicated Cialdini et al.’s (1975) door-in-the-face (DITF) technique according to which people’s likelihood to comply with a target request increases after having turned down a larger request. Thereby, we put the reciprocal concessions theory – the original process explanation of the DITF technique – to a critical test. Overall, compliance rates in our replication were similarly high as those Cialdini et al. (1975) found 45 years ago. That is, participants were more likely to comply with a target request after turning down an extreme request than participants who were exposed to the target request only or to a similarly small request before being exposed to the target request. These findings support the idea that reciprocity norms play a crucial role in DITF strategies. Moreover, the results suggest that at least some social psychological findings can transcend a particular time, place, and population. Further theoretical implications are discussed.