benjamin-franklin-effect

Benjamin Franklin Effect

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The Benjamin Franklin Effect explores the psychological phenomenon where doing a favor for someone leads to increased liking for that person. Factors like reciprocity and cognitive dissonance contribute to this effect. It has implications in persuasion, conflict resolution, and relationship building, with benefits such as attitude shifts and enhanced collaboration, but challenges in selective reciprocity and biases must be considered.

Factors Behind the Benjamin Franklin Effect:

  • Reciprocity:
    • Definition: Reciprocity is the human tendency to respond to a positive action with another positive action. In the context of the Benjamin Franklin Effect, it refers to the act of returning a favor after receiving one.
    • Role: Reciprocity plays a pivotal role in initiating the cycle of favors and positive attitude change.
  • Cognitive Dissonance:
    • Definition: Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort experienced when an individual’s attitudes or beliefs clash with their behaviors or actions.
    • Role: Cognitive dissonance drives individuals to resolve this discomfort by aligning their attitudes with their behavior, leading to a shift in attitudes after performing a favor.
  • Self-Perception Theory:
    • Definition: The self-perception theory suggests that individuals form attitudes and beliefs about themselves based on their observed behaviors.
    • Role: Engaging in favor-related behavior can lead individuals to perceive themselves as helpful and generous, influencing their attitudes toward the recipient of the favor.

Examples of the Benjamin Franklin Effect:

  • Personal Relationships:
    • Scenario: You perform a favor for a colleague whom you initially had a neutral or slightly negative opinion of.
    • Effect: Over time, you find yourself liking and developing a more positive attitude toward that colleague.
  • Negotiations:
    • Scenario: During a negotiation, you make a concession or offer assistance to the other party.
    • Effect: The other party perceives your goodwill and is more likely to reciprocate, leading to improved rapport and trust during negotiations.
  • Team Dynamics:
    • Scenario: Within a team or group setting, you willingly offer help or support to a fellow team member.
    • Effect: The act of offering assistance fosters collaboration and cohesion within the team, as members develop positive attitudes toward each other.

Implications of the Benjamin Franklin Effect:

  • Persuasion Strategies:
    • Application: Understanding the effect can help individuals and organizations influence others’ attitudes and behaviors by strategically involving reciprocity in persuasion techniques.
  • Conflict Resolution:
    • Application: Reciprocity can be employed as a conflict resolution tool, as it has the potential to ease tensions, build goodwill, and encourage compromise.
  • Building Relationships:
    • Application: Leveraging the Benjamin Franklin Effect can aid in forging and strengthening relationships by facilitating the exchange of favors and assistance.

Benefits of the Benjamin Franklin Effect:

  • Positive Attitude Shift:
    • Outcome: The effect can lead to a positive shift in attitudes, fostering more harmonious interactions and relationships.
  • Enhanced Collaboration:
    • Outcome: Improved collaboration and teamwork can result from the development of positive attitudes among team members.
  • Building Trust:
    • Outcome: Trust is built and reinforced as individuals perceive each other more positively, creating a foundation for stronger relationships.

Challenges of the Benjamin Franklin Effect:

  • Selective Reciprocity:
    • Challenge: Not everyone reciprocates favors equally, leading to selective responses that may not align with the initial favor.
  • Genuine Intentions:
    • Challenge: Ensuring the authenticity of favor exchanges can be challenging, as individuals may engage in reciprocity for various reasons, including social expectations.
  • Overcoming Biases:
    • Challenge: Addressing biases that may influence reciprocity and attitudes, such as biases related to gender, race, or socioeconomic status, requires ongoing effort and awareness.

Additional Examples

  • TV Series: Cliffhangers at the end of TV episodes or seasons leave viewers eagerly anticipating the resolution, keeping them engaged and thinking about the show until it returns.
  • Video Games: In video games, incomplete missions or quests motivate players to continue playing until they achieve success and closure.
  • Books: When reading a novel, readers are often curious about unresolved plot points and characters, compelling them to keep turning the pages.
  • Academic Assignments: Unfinished homework or assignments can linger in a student’s mind, driving them to complete the work before moving on to other activities.
  • Online Courses: Incomplete modules or lessons in an online course may keep learners thinking about what they need to finish.
  • Work Projects: Leaving a project at work incomplete can lead to employees thinking about it after office hours, prompting them to resume work the next day.
  • Puzzle Solving: In games like crosswords or Sudoku, unsolved clues or incomplete puzzles can occupy a person’s thoughts until they are solved.
  • Online Shopping: Abandoned shopping carts on e-commerce websites are often followed up with reminders or discounts to encourage shoppers to complete their purchases.
  • Cooking and Recipes: When a person starts cooking a meal but doesn’t finish, they may keep thinking about it until they complete the dish.
  • Home Improvement: Unfinished DIY projects around the house can nag at homeowners until they decide to complete them.
  • Travel Planning: Planning a trip but not finalizing the itinerary or bookings can lead to travelers constantly thinking about the pending arrangements.
  • Fitness Goals: Leaving a workout routine incomplete, such as skipping the last set of exercises, can keep individuals thinking about their fitness goals until they finish the workout.
  • Video Streaming: Streaming services automatically play the next episode in a TV series to keep viewers engaged, leveraging the Zeigarnik Effect.
  • Game Shows: Contestants on game shows may obsess over unchosen answers or unearned rewards, driving them to participate again.
  • Restaurant Reservations: Delayed restaurant reservations or unconfirmed bookings can linger in diners’ minds until they secure their plans.

Key Highlights of the Benjamin Franklin Effect:

  • Definition: The Benjamin Franklin Effect is a psychological phenomenon where doing a favor for someone increases your liking and positive attitude towards that person.
  • Factors Contributing to the Effect:
    • Reciprocity: The tendency to return a favor after receiving one, creating a sense of obligation and positive sentiment.
    • Cognitive Dissonance: The discomfort caused by holding conflicting attitudes and behaviors, which can be resolved by developing a positive attitude towards the person for whom the favor was done.
    • Self-Perception Theory: Forming attitudes based on observing our own behavior, leading to the belief that if we did a favor, we must like the person.
  • Examples:
    • In personal relationships, doing favors for others can increase our liking for them.
    • In negotiations, performing a favor can build rapport and trust, leading to more successful outcomes.
    • Applying the effect within teams can enhance collaboration and cohesion.
  • Implications:
    • Persuasion Strategies: Utilizing the effect to influence others’ attitudes and behaviors.
    • Conflict Resolution: Using reciprocity to ease tensions and resolve conflicts.
    • Building Relationships: Creating positive relationships by exchanging favors and assistance.
  • Benefits:
    • Positive Attitude Shift: Engaging in reciprocal favors can lead to a positive shift in attitudes towards others.
    • Enhanced Collaboration: The effect improves collaboration and teamwork within groups.
    • Building Trust: Reciprocal favors build trust and foster stronger relationships.
  • Challenges:
    • Selective Reciprocity: Not everyone responds equally to favors, leading to selective reciprocation.
    • Genuine Intentions: Ensuring that favor exchanges are genuine and not manipulative.
    • Overcoming Biases: Addressing biases that may influence reciprocity and attitudes.

Key Takeaways:

  • The Benjamin Franklin Effect explains how performing favors for others can lead to increased liking and positive attitudes towards them.
  • This phenomenon is driven by factors like reciprocity, cognitive dissonance, and the self-perception theory.
  • It has implications in persuasion, conflict resolution, and relationship building, but challenges include selective reciprocation and addressing biases.

Framework NameDescriptionWhen to Apply
Benjamin Franklin Effect– Named after the American statesman and polymath Benjamin Franklin, this psychological phenomenon suggests that individuals are more likely to develop positive feelings or attitudes towards someone after they have done them a favor, reflecting a shift from cognitive dissonance to cognitive consonance.– When seeking to improve relationships or influence others, to leverage the Benjamin Franklin Effect by encouraging individuals to perform favors or helpful acts for others, fostering positive feelings, rapport, and cooperation, and potentially enhancing interpersonal dynamics or collaboration.
Reciprocity Principle– Encompasses the social norm whereby individuals feel obligated to return favors, kindness, or concessions received from others, suggesting that the Benjamin Franklin Effect may be attributed to the reciprocity principle, wherein individuals reciprocate kindness to maintain social harmony or balance.– When building rapport or fostering goodwill, to leverage the reciprocity principle by initiating acts of kindness or generosity towards others, encouraging reciprocal behaviors, and strengthening interpersonal bonds or relationships based on mutual trust, respect, and cooperation.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory– Refers to the psychological discomfort experienced when individuals hold conflicting beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors, suggesting that the Benjamin Franklin Effect may occur as individuals resolve cognitive dissonance by aligning their attitudes with their actions to restore internal consistency.– When addressing resistance or skepticism, to leverage cognitive dissonance theory by encouraging individuals to engage in behaviors or actions that are congruent with desired attitudes or beliefs, facilitating attitude change or persuasion by reducing cognitive dissonance and enhancing cognitive consonance.
Interpersonal Influence– Involves the ability to affect others’ attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors through persuasion, social influence, or interpersonal dynamics, suggesting that the Benjamin Franklin Effect can be used strategically to influence others’ perceptions or feelings towards oneself or others through reciprocal acts of kindness or assistance.– When seeking to influence opinions or attitudes, to utilize interpersonal influence strategies by eliciting favorable behaviors or actions from others, fostering positive perceptions or attitudes, and potentially influencing decision-making, cooperation, or collaboration based on reciprocity and goodwill.
Relationship Building– Encompasses activities, behaviors, or strategies aimed at establishing, maintaining, or strengthening interpersonal connections or bonds, suggesting that the Benjamin Franklin Effect can contribute to relationship building by fostering positive feelings, rapport, and trust through reciprocal acts of kindness or assistance.– When cultivating professional or personal relationships, to integrate relationship-building activities or strategies that leverage the Benjamin Franklin Effect by encouraging individuals to perform helpful acts or favors for others, fostering mutual respect, reciprocity, and cooperation in relationships.
Persuasion Techniques– Involves strategies or tactics used to influence others’ attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors, suggesting that the Benjamin Franklin Effect can be employed as a persuasive technique to cultivate favorable feelings or attitudes towards oneself or a cause through reciprocal acts of kindness or assistance.– When seeking to persuade or influence others, to incorporate persuasion techniques that leverage the Benjamin Franklin Effect by encouraging individuals to engage in behaviors or actions that foster positive feelings or attitudes, enhancing receptivity, cooperation, or compliance with desired requests or proposals.
Social Exchange Theory– Refers to the sociological perspective that views social interactions as exchanges of resources or rewards, suggesting that the Benjamin Franklin Effect may be understood within the framework of social exchange theory, wherein individuals engage in reciprocal behaviors to maximize rewards or benefits and minimize costs.– When analyzing social interactions or relationships, to consider social exchange theory by examining the dynamics of reciprocity, resource exchange, and mutual benefit in interpersonal exchanges, informing strategies for building rapport, trust, and cooperation based on principles of reciprocity and mutual gain.
Gratitude and Appreciation– Involves expressing acknowledgment or thanks for acts of kindness, assistance, or support received from others, suggesting that the Benjamin Franklin Effect can be reinforced through expressions of gratitude or appreciation, which further strengthen interpersonal bonds and reinforce positive feelings or attitudes.– When fostering positive relationships or teamwork, to cultivate a culture of gratitude and appreciation by acknowledging and reciprocating acts of kindness or support, fostering positive emotions, trust, and collaboration, and reinforcing the effects of the Benjamin Franklin Effect in building stronger interpersonal connections.
Empathy and Compassion– Encompasses understanding and sharing others’ feelings or experiences and taking compassionate action to alleviate their suffering or distress, suggesting that the Benjamin Franklin Effect may be facilitated through empathic and compassionate responses to others’ needs or challenges.– When promoting empathy or building empathy skills, to encourage individuals to engage in acts of kindness or assistance towards others, fostering empathic responses, compassion, and mutual understanding, and potentially strengthening interpersonal connections through shared experiences of reciprocity and care.

Connected Thinking Frameworks

Convergent vs. Divergent Thinking

convergent-vs-divergent-thinking
Convergent thinking occurs when the solution to a problem can be found by applying established rules and logical reasoning. Whereas divergent thinking is an unstructured problem-solving method where participants are encouraged to develop many innovative ideas or solutions to a given problem. Where convergent thinking might work for larger, mature organizations where divergent thinking is more suited for startups and innovative companies.

Critical Thinking

critical-thinking
Critical thinking involves analyzing observations, facts, evidence, and arguments to form a judgment about what someone reads, hears, says, or writes.

Biases

biases
The concept of cognitive biases was introduced and popularized by the work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1972. Biases are seen as systematic errors and flaws that make humans deviate from the standards of rationality, thus making us inept at making good decisions under uncertainty.

Second-Order Thinking

second-order-thinking
Second-order thinking is a means of assessing the implications of our decisions by considering future consequences. Second-order thinking is a mental model that considers all future possibilities. It encourages individuals to think outside of the box so that they can prepare for every and eventuality. It also discourages the tendency for individuals to default to the most obvious choice.

Lateral Thinking

lateral-thinking
Lateral thinking is a business strategy that involves approaching a problem from a different direction. The strategy attempts to remove traditionally formulaic and routine approaches to problem-solving by advocating creative thinking, therefore finding unconventional ways to solve a known problem. This sort of non-linear approach to problem-solving, can at times, create a big impact.

Bounded Rationality

bounded-rationality
Bounded rationality is a concept attributed to Herbert Simon, an economist and political scientist interested in decision-making and how we make decisions in the real world. In fact, he believed that rather than optimizing (which was the mainstream view in the past decades) humans follow what he called satisficing.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

dunning-kruger-effect
The Dunning-Kruger effect describes a cognitive bias where people with low ability in a task overestimate their ability to perform that task well. Consumers or businesses that do not possess the requisite knowledge make bad decisions. What’s more, knowledge gaps prevent the person or business from seeing their mistakes.

Occam’s Razor

occams-razor
Occam’s Razor states that one should not increase (beyond reason) the number of entities required to explain anything. All things being equal, the simplest solution is often the best one. The principle is attributed to 14th-century English theologian William of Ockham.

Lindy Effect

lindy-effect
The Lindy Effect is a theory about the ageing of non-perishable things, like technology or ideas. Popularized by author Nicholas Nassim Taleb, the Lindy Effect states that non-perishable things like technology age – linearly – in reverse. Therefore, the older an idea or a technology, the same will be its life expectancy.

Antifragility

antifragility
Antifragility was first coined as a term by author, and options trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Antifragility is a characteristic of systems that thrive as a result of stressors, volatility, and randomness. Therefore, Antifragile is the opposite of fragile. Where a fragile thing breaks up to volatility; a robust thing resists volatility. An antifragile thing gets stronger from volatility (provided the level of stressors and randomness doesn’t pass a certain threshold).

Systems Thinking

systems-thinking
Systems thinking is a holistic means of investigating the factors and interactions that could contribute to a potential outcome. It is about thinking non-linearly, and understanding the second-order consequences of actions and input into the system.

Vertical Thinking

vertical-thinking
Vertical thinking, on the other hand, is a problem-solving approach that favors a selective, analytical, structured, and sequential mindset. The focus of vertical thinking is to arrive at a reasoned, defined solution.

Maslow’s Hammer

einstellung-effect
Maslow’s Hammer, otherwise known as the law of the instrument or the Einstellung effect, is a cognitive bias causing an over-reliance on a familiar tool. This can be expressed as the tendency to overuse a known tool (perhaps a hammer) to solve issues that might require a different tool. This problem is persistent in the business world where perhaps known tools or frameworks might be used in the wrong context (like business plans used as planning tools instead of only investors’ pitches).

Peter Principle

peter-principle
The Peter Principle was first described by Canadian sociologist Lawrence J. Peter in his 1969 book The Peter Principle. The Peter Principle states that people are continually promoted within an organization until they reach their level of incompetence.

Straw Man Fallacy

straw-man-fallacy
The straw man fallacy describes an argument that misrepresents an opponent’s stance to make rebuttal more convenient. The straw man fallacy is a type of informal logical fallacy, defined as a flaw in the structure of an argument that renders it invalid.

Streisand Effect

streisand-effect
The Streisand Effect is a paradoxical phenomenon where the act of suppressing information to reduce visibility causes it to become more visible. In 2003, Streisand attempted to suppress aerial photographs of her Californian home by suing photographer Kenneth Adelman for an invasion of privacy. Adelman, who Streisand assumed was paparazzi, was instead taking photographs to document and study coastal erosion. In her quest for more privacy, Streisand’s efforts had the opposite effect.

Heuristic

heuristic
As highlighted by German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer in the paper “Heuristic Decision Making,” the term heuristic is of Greek origin, meaning “serving to find out or discover.” More precisely, a heuristic is a fast and accurate way to make decisions in the real world, which is driven by uncertainty.

Recognition Heuristic

recognition-heuristic
The recognition heuristic is a psychological model of judgment and decision making. It is part of a suite of simple and economical heuristics proposed by psychologists Daniel Goldstein and Gerd Gigerenzer. The recognition heuristic argues that inferences are made about an object based on whether it is recognized or not.

Representativeness Heuristic

representativeness-heuristic
The representativeness heuristic was first described by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. The representativeness heuristic judges the probability of an event according to the degree to which that event resembles a broader class. When queried, most will choose the first option because the description of John matches the stereotype we may hold for an archaeologist.

Take-The-Best Heuristic

take-the-best-heuristic
The take-the-best heuristic is a decision-making shortcut that helps an individual choose between several alternatives. The take-the-best (TTB) heuristic decides between two or more alternatives based on a single good attribute, otherwise known as a cue. In the process, less desirable attributes are ignored.

Bundling Bias

bundling-bias
The bundling bias is a cognitive bias in e-commerce where a consumer tends not to use all of the products bought as a group, or bundle. Bundling occurs when individual products or services are sold together as a bundle. Common examples are tickets and experiences. The bundling bias dictates that consumers are less likely to use each item in the bundle. This means that the value of the bundle and indeed the value of each item in the bundle is decreased.

Barnum Effect

barnum-effect
The Barnum Effect is a cognitive bias where individuals believe that generic information – which applies to most people – is specifically tailored for themselves.

First-Principles Thinking

first-principles-thinking
First-principles thinking – sometimes called reasoning from first principles – is used to reverse-engineer complex problems and encourage creativity. It involves breaking down problems into basic elements and reassembling them from the ground up. Elon Musk is among the strongest proponents of this way of thinking.

Ladder Of Inference

ladder-of-inference
The ladder of inference is a conscious or subconscious thinking process where an individual moves from a fact to a decision or action. The ladder of inference was created by academic Chris Argyris to illustrate how people form and then use mental models to make decisions.

Goodhart’s Law

goodharts-law
Goodhart’s Law is named after British monetary policy theorist and economist Charles Goodhart. Speaking at a conference in Sydney in 1975, Goodhart said that “any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.” Goodhart’s Law states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

Six Thinking Hats Model

six-thinking-hats-model
The Six Thinking Hats model was created by psychologist Edward de Bono in 1986, who noted that personality type was a key driver of how people approached problem-solving. For example, optimists view situations differently from pessimists. Analytical individuals may generate ideas that a more emotional person would not, and vice versa.

Mandela Effect

mandela-effect
The Mandela effect is a phenomenon where a large group of people remembers an event differently from how it occurred. The Mandela effect was first described in relation to Fiona Broome, who believed that former South African President Nelson Mandela died in prison during the 1980s. While Mandela was released from prison in 1990 and died 23 years later, Broome remembered news coverage of his death in prison and even a speech from his widow. Of course, neither event occurred in reality. But Broome was later to discover that she was not the only one with the same recollection of events.

Crowding-Out Effect

crowding-out-effect
The crowding-out effect occurs when public sector spending reduces spending in the private sector.

Bandwagon Effect

bandwagon-effect
The bandwagon effect tells us that the more a belief or idea has been adopted by more people within a group, the more the individual adoption of that idea might increase within the same group. This is the psychological effect that leads to herd mentality. What in marketing can be associated with social proof.

Moore’s Law

moores-law
Moore’s law states that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles approximately every two years. This observation was made by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965 and it become a guiding principle for the semiconductor industry and has had far-reaching implications for technology as a whole.

Disruptive Innovation

disruptive-innovation
Disruptive innovation as a term was first described by Clayton M. Christensen, an American academic and business consultant whom The Economist called “the most influential management thinker of his time.” Disruptive innovation describes the process by which a product or service takes hold at the bottom of a market and eventually displaces established competitors, products, firms, or alliances.

Value Migration

value-migration
Value migration was first described by author Adrian Slywotzky in his 1996 book Value Migration – How to Think Several Moves Ahead of the Competition. Value migration is the transferal of value-creating forces from outdated business models to something better able to satisfy consumer demands.

Bye-Now Effect

bye-now-effect
The bye-now effect describes the tendency for consumers to think of the word “buy” when they read the word “bye”. In a study that tracked diners at a name-your-own-price restaurant, each diner was asked to read one of two phrases before ordering their meal. The first phrase, “so long”, resulted in diners paying an average of $32 per meal. But when diners recited the phrase “bye bye” before ordering, the average price per meal rose to $45.

Groupthink

groupthink
Groupthink occurs when well-intentioned individuals make non-optimal or irrational decisions based on a belief that dissent is impossible or on a motivation to conform. Groupthink occurs when members of a group reach a consensus without critical reasoning or evaluation of the alternatives and their consequences.

Stereotyping

stereotyping
A stereotype is a fixed and over-generalized belief about a particular group or class of people. These beliefs are based on the false assumption that certain characteristics are common to every individual residing in that group. Many stereotypes have a long and sometimes controversial history and are a direct consequence of various political, social, or economic events. Stereotyping is the process of making assumptions about a person or group of people based on various attributes, including gender, race, religion, or physical traits.

Murphy’s Law

murphys-law
Murphy’s Law states that if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. Murphy’s Law was named after aerospace engineer Edward A. Murphy. During his time working at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949, Murphy cursed a technician who had improperly wired an electrical component and said, “If there is any way to do it wrong, he’ll find it.”

Law of Unintended Consequences

law-of-unintended-consequences
The law of unintended consequences was first mentioned by British philosopher John Locke when writing to parliament about the unintended effects of interest rate rises. However, it was popularized in 1936 by American sociologist Robert K. Merton who looked at unexpected, unanticipated, and unintended consequences and their impact on society.

Fundamental Attribution Error

fundamental-attribution-error
Fundamental attribution error is a bias people display when judging the behavior of others. The tendency is to over-emphasize personal characteristics and under-emphasize environmental and situational factors.

Outcome Bias

outcome-bias
Outcome bias describes a tendency to evaluate a decision based on its outcome and not on the process by which the decision was reached. In other words, the quality of a decision is only determined once the outcome is known. Outcome bias occurs when a decision is based on the outcome of previous events without regard for how those events developed.

Hindsight Bias

hindsight-bias
Hindsight bias is the tendency for people to perceive past events as more predictable than they actually were. The result of a presidential election, for example, seems more obvious when the winner is announced. The same can also be said for the avid sports fan who predicted the correct outcome of a match regardless of whether their team won or lost. Hindsight bias, therefore, is the tendency for an individual to convince themselves that they accurately predicted an event before it happened.

Read Next: Biases, Bounded Rationality, Mandela Effect, Dunning-Kruger Effect, Lindy Effect, Crowding Out Effect, Bandwagon Effect.

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