People sending direct, in‑person requests routinely under‑estimate the chance of getting a positive response by about 48%, according to a body of experimental work summarised in a major review. The asymmetry was consistent across different favours, populations and research teams, suggesting a robust psychological blind spot with wide practical consequences for fundraising, volunteering and everyday social interactions.
What researchers did and found
The finding is drawn from a cluster of field experiments and naturalistic tests reviewed by Vanessa Bohns (Cornell University) in 2016 and from earlier foundational work. In the most frequently cited experiment, conducted by Francis Flynn and Vanessa Lake in 2008, volunteers were instructed to ask strangers for small favours and to predict how many people they would need to approach before someone agreed.
Across specific tasks, the predictions and outcomes diverged sharply:
- For completing a short questionnaire (five to ten minutes), participants predicted they would need to ask about 20 people; the actual number approached before success was roughly 10.
- When the request was to borrow a mobile phone to make a call, the predicted number was 10 versus an actual of about 6.
- Asking a stranger to walk the requester to a campus gym produced a prediction of 7 approaches but an actual success rate that equated to just over 2 approaches.
The effect extends beyond campus settings. A field study of volunteers raising funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society found fundraisers expected to approach roughly 210 people but in practice approached about 122. Donors’ amounts were also under‑predicted: fundraisers forecast a mean gift of approximately $48 while the realised mean was about $64.
| Request type | Predicted approaches | Actual approaches |
|---|---|---|
| Short questionnaire | 20 | 10 |
| Borrow phone | 10 | 6 |
| Walk to gym | 7 | ~2 |
| Fundraising | ~210 | ~122 |
Why the mismatch occurs
Intuitively, one might blame low confidence in the requester. The review argues for a different mechanism: requesters do not appreciate how uncomfortable it is for the recipient to refuse an in‑person ask. The person making the request is absorbed in their own anxiety and imagined rejection; they lack direct access to the discomfiture experienced by the potential helper.
“If you need help, just ask.”
The repeated pattern — always under‑estimating success, never reversing direction — points to a social asymmetry rather than random error. The reviewers and original researchers note the effect is consistent across tasks, participant samples and investigators, which strengthens the case for a general cognitive or social process rather than a study‑specific quirk.
Implications and cautions
The practical implications are wide. For charities and volunteer organisers, the results imply that frontline solicitors may be unnecessarily cautious about making direct asks, potentially leaving donations and participation on the table. For policymakers and public‑health campaigns that rely on face‑to‑face persuasion, the finding suggests that simply encouraging staff or volunteers to make direct, polite requests could increase uptake more than predicted.
However, the literature does not claim that every kind of request will be accepted more often than expected, nor that the effect will hold in written or digital formats. The reviewed studies concern face‑to‑face interactions; different social dynamics could operate over phone, text or social media.
On a behavioural level, the work offers a useful corrective: the barrier to action for most people is not that strangers are inhospitable, but that we misread the social cost of refusal. The remedy, the researchers imply, is simple and actionable: ask more often. The numbers suggest the odds of success are better than most requesters imagine.
