The Benjamin Franklin Effect
The Misconception: You do nice things for the people you like and bad things to the people you hate.
The Truth: You grow to like people for whom you do nice things and hate people you harm.
Benjamin Franklin knew how to deal with haters.
Born in 1706 as the eighth of 17 children to a Massachusetts soap and candlestick maker, the chances Benjamin would go on to become a gentleman, scholar, scientist, statesman, musician, author, publisher and all-around general bad-ass were astronomically low, yet he did just that and more because he was a master of the game of personal politics.
Like many people full of drive and intelligence born into a low station, Franklin developed strong people skills and social powers. All else denied, the analytical mind will pick apart behavior, and Franklin became adroit at human relations. From an early age, he was a talker and a schemer – a man capable of guile, cunning and persuasive charm. He stockpiled a cache of cajolative secret weapons, one of which was the Benjamin Franklin Effect, a tool as useful today as it was in the 1730s and still just as counterintuitive. To understand it, let’s first rewind back to 1706.
Franklin’s prospects were dim. With 17 children, Josiah and Abiah Franklin could only afford two years of schooling for Benjamin. Instead, they made him work, and when he was 12 he became an apprentice to his brother James who was a printer in Boston. The printing business gave Benjamin the opportunity to read books and pamphlets. It was as if Ben Franklin was the one kid in the neighborhood who had access to the Internet. He read everything, and taught himself every skill and discipline one could absorb from text.
At 17, Franklin left Boston and started his own printing business In Philadelphia. At age 21, he formed a “club of mutual improvement” called the Junto. It was a grand scheme to gobble up knowledge. He invited working-class polymaths like himself who wanted to experiment in 1700s lifestyle design the chance to pool together their books and trade thoughts and knowledge of the world on a regular basis. They wrote and recited essays, held debates, and devised ways to acquire currency. Franklin used the Junto like a private consulting firm, a think tank, and he bounced ideas off of them so he could write and print better pamphlets. Franklin eventually founded the first subscription library in America and wrote it would make “the common tradesman and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries,” not to mention, give him access to whatever books he wanted to buy. Genius.
By the 1730s Franklin was riding down an information superhighway of his own construction, and the constant stream of information made him a savvy politician in Philadelphia. A celebrity and an entrepreneur who printed both a newspaper and an almanac, Franklin had collected a few enemies by the time he ran for the position of clerk of the general assembly, but Franklin knew how to deal with haters.
As clerk, he could step into a waterfall of data coming out of the nascent government. He would record and print public records, bills, vote totals and other official documents. He would also make a fortune literally printing the state’s paper money. He won the race, but the next election wasn’t going to be as easy. Franklin’s autobiography never mentions this guy’s name, but according to the book when Franklin ran for his second term as clerk, one of his colleagues delivered a long speech to the legislature lambasting Franklin. Franklin still won his second term, but this guy truly pissed him off. In addition, this man was “a gentleman of fortune and education” who Franklin believed would one day become a person of great influence in the government. So, Franklin knew he had to be dealt with, and thus he launched his human behavior stealth bomber.
Franklin set out to turn his hater into a fan, but he wanted to do it without “paying any servile respect to him.” Franklin’s reputation as a book collector and library founder gave him a reputation as a man of discerning literary tastes, so Franklin sent a letter to the hater asking if he could borrow a selection from the his library, one which was a “very scarce and curious book.” The rival, flattered, sent it right away. Franklin sent it back a week later with a thank you note. Mission accomplished.
The next time the legislature met, the man approached Franklin and spoke to him in person for the first time. Franklin said the hater “ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death.”
What exactly happened here? How can asking for a favor turn a hater into a fan? How can requesting kindness cause a person to change his or her opinion about you? The answer to what generates The Benjamin Franklin Effect is the answer to much more about why you do what you do.
Source: www.GlitterFy.com
Let’s start with your attitudes. Attitude is the psychological term for the the bundle of beliefs and feelings you experience toward a person, topic, idea, etc. without having to consciously think. Let’s try it out – Justin Beiber. Feel that? That’s your attitude toward him – a cascade of associations and feelings zipping along your neural net. Let’s try some more. Read this and then close your eyes – blueberry cheesecake. Nice, huh? One more – nuclear bomb. There you go again, a thunderhead of brain activity is telling you how you feel about that topic. Ask yourself this: how did you form that attitude?
For many things, your attitudes came from actions which led to observations which led to explanations which led to beliefs. It is well known in psychology the cart of behavior often gets before the horse of attitude. Your actions tend to chisel away at the raw marble of your persona, carving into being the self you experience day-to-day. It doesn’t feel that way though. To conscious experience, it feels like you are the one holding the chisel, motivated by existing thoughts and beliefs. It feels as though the person wearing your pants is performing actions consistent with your established character, yet there is plenty of research suggesting otherwise. The things you do often create the things you believe.
At the lowest level, behavior-into-attitude conversion begins with impression management theory which says you present to your peers the person you wish to be. You engage in something economists call signaling by buying and displaying to your peers the sorts of things which give you social capital. If you live in the Deep South you might buy a high-rise pickup and a set of truck nuts. If you live in San Francisco you might buy a Prius and a bike rack. Whatever are the easiest to obtain, loudest forms of the ideals you aspire to portray become the things you own, like bumper stickers signaling to the world you are in one group and not another. Those things then influence you to become the sort of person who owns them.
As a primate, you are keen to social cues which portend your possible ostracism from an in-group. In the wild, banishment equals death. So, it follows you work to feel included because the feeling of being left out, being the last to know, being the only one not invited to the party is a deep and severe slice into your emotional core. Anxiety over being ostracized, over being an outsider has driven the behavior of billions for millions of years. Impression management theory says you are always thinking about how you appear to others, even when there are no others around. In the absence of onlookers, deep in your mind, a mirror reflects back that which you have done, and when you see a person who has behaved in a way which could get you booted from your in-group, the anxiety drives you to seek a re-alignment. But, which came first? Your display or your belief? As a professional, do you feel compelled to wear a suit, or after donning a suit do you conduct yourself in a professional manner? Do you vote Democrat because you champion social programs, or do you champion social programs because you voted Democrat? The research says the latter in both cases. When you become a member of a group, or the fan of a genre, or the user of a product – those things have more influence on your attitudes than your attitudes have on them, but why?
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” – Kurt Vonnegut
Self perception theory says your attitudes are shaped by observing your own behavior, being unable to pinpoint the cause, and trying to make sense of it. You look back on a situation as if in an audience trying to understand your own motivations. You act as observer of your actions, a witness to your thoughts, and you form beliefs about your self based on those observations. Psychologists John Caciappo, Joseph R. Priester and Gary Bernston at the University of Chicago demonstrated this in 1993. They showed Chinese characters to people unfamiliar with Chinese ideographs and asked them to say whether they thought each character was positive or negative. Some people did this while lifting upward on the bottom of a table while others pushed downward against the surface. 
On average, the characters rated highest across all subjects were the ones they saw while pulling upward, and the ones they rated as being most negative were the ones they saw while pushing down. Why? Because you unconsciously associate flexing with positive experiences and extension with negative. Pushing and pulling affects your perception because from the time you were an infant you have pulled toward you that which you desired and shoved into the distance that which repulsed you. The very word – repulsion – means to drive away. The neural connections are deep and dense. Self perception theory divides memories into declarative, or accessible to the conscious mind, and non-declarative, that which you store unconsciously. You intuitively understand how declarative memories shape, direct, and inform you. If you think about pumpkin spice muffins you feel warm and fuzzy. Self-perception theory posits non-declarative memories are just as powerful. You can’t access them, but they pulsate through your nervous system. Your posture, the temperature of the room, the way the muscles of your face are tensing – these things are informing your perception of who you are and what you think. Drawing near is positive. Pushing away is negative. Self perception theory shows you unconsciously observe your own actions and then explain them in a pleasing way without ever realizing it. Benjamin Franklin’s enemy observed himself performing a generous and positive act by offering the treasured tome to his rival, and then he unconsciously explained his own behavior to himself. He must not have hated Franklin after all, he thought; why else would he do something like that?
“A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.” – Albert Camus
Many psychologists would explain the Benjamin Franklin effect through the lens of cognitive dissonance, a giant theory made up of thousands of studies which have pinpointed a menagerie of mental stumbling blocks including confirmation bias, hindsight bias, the backfire effect, the sunk cost fallacy, and many more, but as a general theory it describes something you experience every day.
Sometimes you can’t find a logical, moral or socially acceptable explanation for your actions. Sometimes your behavior runs counter to the expectations of your culture, your social group, your family or even the person you believe yourself to be. In those moments you ask, “Why did I do that?” and if the answer damages your self-esteem, a justification is required. You feel like a bag of sand has ruptured in your head, and you want relief. You can see the proof in an MRI scan of someone presented with political opinions which conflict with their own. The brain scans of a person shown statements which oppose their political stance show the highest areas of the cortex, the portions responsible for providing rational thought, get less blood until another statement is presented which confirms their beliefs. Your brain literally begins to shut down when you feel your ideology is threatened. Try it yourself. Watch a pundit you hate for 15 minutes. Resist the urge to change the channel. Don’t complain to the person next to you. Don’t get online and rant. Try and let it go. You will find this is excruciatingly difficult.
In their fantastic book about cognitive dissonance, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me), Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson write about the great psychologist Leon Festinger who, in 1957, infiltrated a doomsday cult. The cult was led by Dorothy Martin who called herself Sister Thedra. She convinced her followers in Chicago an alien spacecraft would suck them up and fly away right as a massive flood ended the human race on December 21, 1954. Many of her followers gave away everything they owned, including their homes, as the day approached. Festinger wanted to see what would happen when the spaceship and the flood failed to appear. Festinger hypothesized the cult members faced the choice of either seeing themselves as foolish rubes or assuming their faith had spared them. Would the cult members keep their weird beliefs beyond the date the world was supposed to end and become even more passionate as had so many groups before them under similar circumstances? Of course they did. Once enough time had passed they could be pretty sure no spaceships were coming, they began to contact the media with the good news: their positive energy had convinced God to spare the Earth. They had freaked out and then found a way to calm down. Festinger saw their heightened state of arousal as a special form of anxiety – cognitive dissonance. When you experience this arousal it is as if two competing beliefs are struggling in a mental bar fight, knocking over chairs and smashing bottles over each other’s heads. It feels awful, and the feeling persists until one belief knocks the other out cold.
Festinger went on to study cognitive dissonance in a controlled environment. He and his colleague Judson Mills set up an experiment at Stanford in which they invited students to join an exclusive club studying the psychology of sex. They told students to get in the group they would have to pass an initiation. They secretly divided the applicants into two groups, one read sexual terms from a dictionary out loud to a scientist, and the other read aloud entire passages from the most famous romance novel of all time, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. As Tavris and Aronson point out, this was 1950s America, so either task was massively embarrassing, but reading aloud sex scenes filled with F and C-bombs evoked a megadose of awkwardness. After the initiation, both groups listened to an audio recording of the sort of group discussion they had just earned the ability to join. The scientists made sure the discussion they heard was as dry and boring and un-sexy as they could make it, going so far as to focus the sex talk on the mating habits of birds. They then had the students rate the talk. The people who read from the dictionary told Festinger the sex group was a drag and probably not something they’d like to continue attending. The romance novel group said the group was exciting and interesting and something they could not wait to begin. Same tape, two realities.
“These findings do not mean that people enjoy painful experiences, such as filling out their income-tax forms, or that people enjoy things because they are associated with pain. What they do show is that if a person voluntarily goes through a difficult or a painful experience in order to attain some goal or object, that goal or object becomes more attractive.” – Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson from their book Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)
Festinger and another colleague, J. Merrill Carlsmith, pushed ahead with this research in 1959 in what is now considered the landmark study which launched the next 40 years of investigation into the phenomenon, an investigation which continues right up until today.
Students at Stanford University signed up for a two-hour experiment called “Measures of Performance” as a requirement to pass a class. Researchers divided them into two groups. One was told they would receive $1, or about $8 in today’s money. The other group was told they would receive $20, or about $150 in today’s money. The scientists then explained the students would be helping improve the research department by evaluating a new experiment. They were then led into a room where they had to use one hand to place wooden spools into a tray and remove them over and over again. A half-hour later, the task changed to turning square pegs clockwise on a flat board one-quarter spin at a time for half an hour. All the while, an experimenter watched and scribbled. It was one hour of torturous tedium with a guy watching and taking notes. After the hour was up, the researcher asked the student if he could do the school a favor on his way out by telling the next student scheduled to perform the tasks who was waiting outside that the experiment was fun and interesting. Finally, after lying, people in both groups – one with $1 in their pocket and one with $20 – filled out a survey in which they were asked their true feelings about the study. What do you think they said? Here’s a hint – one group not only lied to the person waiting outside but went on to report they loved repeatedly turning little wooden knobs. Which one do you think internalized the lie? On average, the people paid $1 reported the study was stimulating. The people paid $20 reported what they just went thorough was some astoundly boring-ass shit. Why the difference?
Source: www.tailoredexpressions.com
According to Festinger, both groups lied about the hour, but only one felt cognitive dissonance. It was as if the group paid $20 thought, “Well, that was awful, and I just lied about it, but they paid me a lot of money, so…no worries.” Their mental discomfort was quickly and easily dealt with by a nice external justification. The group paid $1 had no outside justification, so they turned inward. They altered their beliefs to salve their cerebral sunburn. This is why volunteering feels good and unpaid interns work so hard. Without an obvious outside reward you create an internal one.
That’s the cycle of cognitive dissonance, a painful confusion about who you are gets resolved by seeing the world in a more satisfying way. As Festinger said, you make “your view of the world fit with how you feel or what you’ve done.” When you feel anxiety over your actions, you will seek to lower the anxiety by creating a fantasy world in which your anxiety can’t exist, and then you come to believe the fantasy is reality just as Benjamin Franklin’s rival did. He couldn’t possibly have lent a rare book to a guy he didn’t like, so he must actually like him. Problem solved.
So, has the Benjamin Franklin Effect itself ever been tested? Yes. Jim Jecker and David Landy, building on the work of Festinger, conducted an experiment in 1969 which had actors pretend to be a scientist and a research secretary conducting a study. Subjects came into the lab believing they were going to perform psychological tests in which they could win money. The actor pretending to be the scientist attempted to make the subjects hate him by being rude and demanding as he administered a rigged series of tests. Each subject succeeded 12 times no matter what and received some spending money. After the experiment, the actor told the subjects to walk up the stairs and fill out a questionnaire. At this point, the actor stopped one third of all the subjects right as they were leaving and asked for the money back. He told them he was paying for the experiment out of his own pocket and could really use the favor because the study was in danger of running out of funds. Everyone agreed. Another third left the room and filled out the questionnaire in front of an actor pretending to be a secretary. As they were about to answer the questions, the secretary asked if they would please donate their winnings back into the research department fund as they were strapped for cash. Again, everyone agreed. The final third got to leave with their winnings without any hassle.
The real study was to see what the subjects thought of the asshole researcher after doing him a favor. The questionnaire asked how much they liked him on a scale from 1 to 12. On average, those who got to leave with their money rated him as a 5.8. The ones who did the secretary a favor gave him a 4.4. The ones who did the researcher a favor gave him a 7.2, suggesting the Benjamin Franklin Effect made them like him far more than the other two groups.
By Fernando Botero
Benjamin Franklin’s hater came to like Franklin after doing him a favor, but what if he had done him harm instead? In 1971, at the University of North Carolina, psychologists John Schopler and John Compere asked students to help with an experiment. They had their subjects administer learning tests to accomplices pretending to be other students. The subjects were told the learners would watch as the teachers used sticks to tap out long patterns on a series of wooden cubes. The learners would then be asked to repeat the patterns. Each teacher was to try out two different methods on two different people, one at a time. In one run, the teachers would offer encouragement when the learner got the patterns correct. In the other run of the experiment, the teacher would insult and criticize the learner when they messed up. Afterward, the teachers filled out a debriefing questionnaire which included questions about how attractive (as a human being, not romantically) and likable the learners were. Across the board, the subjects who received the insults were rated as less attractive than the ones who got encouragement. The teachers’ behavior created their perception. You tend to like the people to whom you are kind and dislike the people to whom you are rude. From the Stanford Prison Experiment to Abu Ghraib, to concentration camps and the attitudes of soldiers spilling blood, mountains of evidence suggest behaviors create attitudes when harming just as they do when helping. Jailers come to look down on inmates; camp guards come to dehumanize their captives; soldiers create derogatory terms for their enemies. It’s difficult to hurt someone you admire. It’s even more difficult to kill a fellow human being. Seeing the casualties you create as something less than you, something deserving of damage, makes it possible to continue seeing yourself as a good and honest person, to continue being sane.
The Benjamin Franklin Effect is the result of your concept of self coming under attack. Every person develops a persona, and that persona persists because inconsistencies in your personal narrative get rewritten, redacted and misinterpreted. If you are like most people, you have high self-esteem and tend to believe you are above average in just about every way. It keeps you going, keeps your head above water, so when the source of your own behavior is mysterious you will confabulate a story which paints you in a positive light. If you are on the other end of the self-esteem spectrum and tend to see yourself as undeserving and unworthy, you will rewrite nebulous behavior as the result of attitudes consistent with the persona of an incompetent person, deviant, or whatever flavor of loser you believe yourself to be. Successes will make you uncomfortable so you will dismiss them as flukes. If people are nice to you, you will assume they have ulterior motives or are mistaken. Whether you love or hate your persona, you protect the self with which you’ve become comfortable. When you observe your own behavior, or feel the gaze of an outsider, you manipulate the facts so they match your expectations.
Most animals just do what they do. Sea cucumbers and aardvarks don’t think about their actions, don’t feel shame, pride or regret. You do, even when there is no reason to. If you look back on a behavior, thought or emotion and feel befuddled, you feel an intense desire to explain it, and that explanation can affect your future behavior, your future thoughts, your future feelings.
Pay attention to when the cart is getting before the horse. Notice when a painful initiation leads to irrational devotion, or when unsatisfying jobs start to seem worthwhile. Remind yourself pledges and promises have power, as do uniforms and parades. Remember in the absence of extrinsic rewards you will seek out or create intrinsic ones. Take into account the higher the price you pay for your decisions the more you value them. See that ambivalence becomes certainty with time. Realize lukewarm feelings become stronger once you commit to a group, club or product. Be wary of the roles you play and the acts you put on, because you tend to fulfill the labels you accept. Above all, remember the more harm you cause, the more hate you feel, and the more kindness you deal into the world the more you come to love the people you help.
“This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, ‘He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.’ And it shows how much more profitable it is prudently to remove, than to resent, return, and continue inimical proceedings.” - Benjamin Franklin
You Are Not So Smart – The Book
If you buy one book this year…well, I suppose you should get something you’ve had your eye on for a while. But, if you buy two or more books this year, might I recommend one of them be a celebration of self delusion? Give the gift of humility (to yourself or someone else you love). Watch the trailer.
Order now: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - iTunes - Books A Million
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Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)
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I am very interested in what you write about, and this might be my adhd talking, but man… who has the ability to read 4,000+ words in one shot on the web these days?
you consider turning these into multiparters w/ appropriate cliff-hangers?
Thanks, but I’m probably going to stick to long-form. I prefer it both as a reader and a writer. I totally understand where you are coming from though, and I tried that in the beginning, but as the pieces got longer, my readership grew in response. Most people tell me it is a welcome change from the junk food blog post approach. I do try to give cues to the reader when I am shifting from section to section, so if you do want to read these in sessions you know when you can break.
Personally, I prefer long form thoughtful posts, as they really let me know more about both the subject and the writer. Besides, one can get a flavor for the post in the first paragraph or so and determine if further reading would be rewarding.
“Most people tell me it is a welcome change from the junk food blog post approach.”
And you can definitely count me among those people. It’s scary that something like doing nothing but read an article for half an hour is so difficult to accomplish these days. Thanks for not caving in to the temptations of junk posting.
This was long but I kind of like the long-form. I go to this site every day to see if there’s a new article and most often I read them immediately and it’s much easier to understand and remember if you don’t chop it up into too small pieces. Tough some of your shorter articles can also be interesting I think some subjects simply need long articles to be explained properly.
But maybe I’m just trying to explain and justify my behavior here. :P
“I strain myself and read a long article. Thus the article must have been good. Otherwise straining myself would have been meaningless and I’m great so I don’t do meaningless things.”
I much prefer longer posts with elaboration. They give me the perception of actually learning something, rather than glossing over concepts in bite sized “This is true!” bits. Longer posts present a “This happens, and here’s why.” stance. Thanks for taking the time to research and write these pieces; they’re fantastic.
Another vote for the long-form. I realized just recently that, while I spend a significant amount of time surfing the Internet daily (during downtimes at work), a few horus later I remember almost nothing of what I’ve read. A longer article that forces me to reflect and consider before digestion is welcome.
After I invested so much time in reading this fascinating post I decided I like you more than ever, you are handsome and very funny. Keep up the good work. Can I lend you some money? Do you need a reference on a job application? Really, ask me for anything.
Mission accomplished.
hahahahahahahaha
haha good!
:-)
also like – and not only from committment.. I think..hmmm :)
after a while you get tired of the one shot takeaway caffeine fix.
this was enjoyable, actually as well every opening line of each paragraph was good, which is what made me read it. Each one goes straight into action. Nicely sucked in :)
I’m glad to hear there’s a market for long-form online. You can’t please everyone ;)
Long form!
Thank you.
That’s what she said..
Vote: Long Form
Thanks for the article.
Another vote for long form.
This is one of my favorite blogs.
Here is a suggestion to the author: Write long articles, but organize them better: divide them up into sections with section headers. This is regularly done in formal writing and in long newspaper articles.
Here are suggestions to readers who find it hard to handle long articles: Don’t read the article at one go: do multiple passes. First read critical portions of the text: the headings, quotes and pictures, the first and last paragraphs, the first and last lines of each paragraph. With that you get an excellent idea about what the article is about quite rapidly. Delve in deeper only where necessary.
There is nothing novel in what I have said above – it something people regularly learn (and often forget) while priming themselves up for verbal reasoning/ reading comprehension/ essay writing sections of standardized tests.
A correction: By “lines” above, I mean “sentences”.
Yes, thank you for the long form. Nothing loses my attention, like having to click 5 times to finish reading an article. I usually give up after the first page.
Yes, stick to long form. I was very disappointed when I started looking through Freshly Pressed and found nothing but a bunch of 500-word posts on uninteresting subjects. I was looking for design inspiration for my own blog, but man those are only design and no substance. And yours has so much substance there’s enough material for a book.
I applaud Zubin’s successful troll using tl;dr as the fodder.
I’d like to imagine that Zubin is this super-ironical internet troll who knew exactly what it would take to get a rise out of this blog’s audience but managed to obfuscate the tl;dr accusation enough so that nobody would recognize it as an attempt to troll the users.
Buuuuut, that’s probably just a fantasy world and the truth is much simpler.
Well, it took me a while to get back here but I really appreciate the amount of work and thought you put into the blog posts. Sure, they’re long but full of interesting studies and no filler. As I’m reading, I’m so caught up that I don’t even notice how long they are.
Totally an interesting article….but I have to agree with Zubin @zjelveh. don’t know what Holden is going on about with the “troll” bit. I also feel it is a bit long, but maybe it’s because it’s 2am (I’m normally awake at this hour these days). I got as far as his “genius” in devising this/that and Junto and just lost interest. It seems everyone lately has this super desire to admire “genius” in someone, as if identifying it gives us access to some secret sauce that lets us know how to “make a mark” in this world. After reading Kirk try to pick you up, LOL, I just thought, yes, I could’ve been happier with this piece in parts. But I love, really love the premise that good begets good, and can’t wait to get back to this article tomorrow…..zzzzzzz :-)
When the long-form writing is this good/interesting, it reads much shorter. And, yeah, I agree about fast-food posts – may be quick, but not filling.
Following the same line of thinking if we were to view commenting on your blog as an “act of charity” we would then be more likely to return to your blog and comment once again, correct?
Don’t worry, I too get scared when I see long articles but this one really interested me so I read it with pleasure.
I incorrectly thought the entire scroll down bar was proportional to the post, (thankfully, it was mostly comments). however this post was so well thought and well written, I was considering how many days it would take me to read instead of closing the window.
Highlight, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V into a Word Document. Read it at your leisure. Ta-da. I generally think of the posts on this site as long feature articles in a newspaper or a technical paper I need to focus on and approach them accordingly.
Nice Long post.
There can be many interpretations for a single behavior. So, my interpretation of that guys behavior goes like this –
No human wants to be in a conflict or a tense state. Its the very nature of mind to escape from any form of pain. The moment one becomes tense is the very moment the mind starts its business to seek some sort of release. NO one wants an enemy. If you hate someone , you can resolve it by making him a friend or you can resolve that inner tension by lambasting him. Whichever is the least resistant way is taken. That man had already tried lambasting Franklin. He probably did not get that release. In fact its only a temporary release that one gets. When Franklin asked him for a favor, it was a golden opportunity for the mind to pounce upon this and release the tension. to have a relief.
Hate is not a concept, its rather and impulse. Mind wants to explain or verbalize away the conflict caused by the impulse. If it is unable to do so then it takes appropriate actions which can even go to the extremes of suicide. Mind is always working as a means to an END. This end is always some sort of a release , a comforting point. The guy could have got this same comforting end through going to Franklin himself but that would have been a blow to his ego. When Franklin himself asked him for favor is when the defensive fall of ego could safely fall down.
It was simply that the guy like any human wanted release. He tried one method, it did not work. He got the opportunity to have relief and he took it. It was a dignifying opportunity especially considering the action he had taken earlier.
I pretty much agree with this revelation that you tend to hate people you have already done bad to. The simple way to look at it is that we tend to cling to an identity – i.e our perception of who we are. The fact is that you are what you are despite what you think you are. But this tendency to regularly CHECK oneself soon develops into a concept about yourself – who you are and how are you ‘supposed to’ behave……
Just use Instapaper and read it later at your leisure.
I look forward to reading the entire article,and to answer the question of who can read 4000 words….me at 400 words a minute.
Thanks for writing this.
I read this post in two bite sized chunks, worked fine and definitely gave me a massive amount of food for thought.
Thanks for the great, intriguing post.
Just a reply to the first poster: I disagree. I read the whole thing. It was in two sittings but so what? The author should write as much or as little as he needs to say in one post to make his point. Then we the readers can read it all in one sitting, or in several, it’s up to us. You can return to a web site just as easily as you can return to a book. (Or haven’t you figured that out yet?) In fact it’s easier because the web site can be accessed from any place with an internet connection but you gotta carry the book with you.
If the author posted one half in one post and then I had to wait a week to read the 2nd half, I might not make it back. Even if I meant to.
I’m just amazed that after such a fascinating article that says so much about human behavior and is backed up so well with facts, you comment on the length? Sheeze.
I am going to vote against the long-form here.
On the whole, I am a fan of long form journalism, but this article seemed to keep going off on tangents. The constant parade of experiments that weren’t entirely germane to the key premise of the article got repetitive.
Long does not mean deep, and long does not necessarily mean good.
I think that the longer and more difficult to read the passage is, the more highly you’ll regard it…
Ginger
I thought the length was fine. It was interesting enough to keep going, the focus changed often enough while still following a thread. I think it’s your ADHD. The article explained an interesting phenomenon in just enough detail to back itself up, with really no waffle or fat to trim.
Splitting it up would create part-articles with part of a point in each one. An article in a magazine, eg New Scientist or Scientific American, can be about that length, or even longer, and they’re popular among the sort of above-averagely smart, curious reader.
You can still use subheadings. The article, for me, would feel more cohesive and organized if I knew where, ahead of time, you were going with your ideas. i could go, oh he’s not going to write about Ben for awhile, let me temp. store all this knowledge i just learned about Ben over here so i can allow my mind to be fresh for this new idea about to be introduced.
How would one get someone to do something nice for them if they are disliked by that person to begin with? Benjamin Franklin asks for a book from someone who gave a long speech on what a jerk he was. what if that person told him to take his book request and shove it? Then what? What if the person you are trying to get you to like you is resisting? What would compel someone who dislikes/hates someone to do a favor for that person? Great article.
I don’t know for sure, but the studies suggest people tend to buckle when you ask for a favor, especially if you do it formally. Run some real-life experiments and let me know how they turn out.
I had the same question while reading this. If behavior influences attitude, where does the incentive for that kind behavior originate if attitude has already established some roots? There has to be more credence to the favor itself. In Franklin’s case, it was because he had clout as a man of discriminatory taste, so I think his request to borrow the book pleased his hater not because he asked for a favor but because he was indirectly complimenting the man. The favor must serve as a way to pander to the person’s esteem to incentivize him to grant the favor. Or in the case of the rude researcher, it goes towards a more “noble” goal?
I had a similar issue as I was reading. Instead of liking the person who continually asks you for favors, don’t you often end up resenting them? I’m pretty sure that for most people I know, the more they inconvenience me, the less I like them.
Actually, it’s a sales technique. “can you do me a favor. . . ” People in general want to “help”.
Franklin was also smart with the request he asked for. He picked something that spoke to an interest in the other person (the person most likely cherished his library) and the opportunity for prestige (his book was selected by someone known for his good taste in books).
It’s possible that Franklin’s request was flattering because it also appealed to the man’s self-perception of being a helpful and generous human being–which Franklin further reinforced by expressing his gratitude via the thank you note!
As far as I understood the story, the guy he wanted to have like him was proud of his library, so having the ability to lend him the book he requested was a source of personal honor for the man, regardless of how much he liked Franklin.
If you ask someone for a favor that plays to their strengths and sources of personal pride, they are likely to get more out of it than you are. I have come to think about this as “allowing them to help me”.
Asking someone for a favor is often taken as a submissive sign. Ask your worst enemy for a favor and he’ll likely oblige, as he will feel it’s to his own personal upheaval. Just make sure the request is reasonable.
You don’t have to get them to do something nice for you exactly. You can do something nice or honorific for them, much like Franklin — even though he said he wasn’t going to servile in the story he asked the hater to lend him a book, which is saying “You are smart enough to have a book that I want.” It wouldn’t have worked if he asked the hater to clean his toilet, even though that also would have been a favour, because that request is an insult.
All you have to do is be nice to others then they usually can’t help but be nice to you back (because only jerks respond with animosity against a nice gesture and most people don’t want to be jerks). This, along with the Ben Franklin effect, is simple cognitive dissonance. A person cannot act one way but believe another for long.
Exactly. And Franklin was also very smart in writing a personal note to thank him.
It goes right back to cognitive dissonance and maintaining your persona – we are taught that it is rude to refuse a reasonable request, and good people help others out and similar ideas. To the point that children today are taught that they MUST share their toys, and if they don’t they are being rude and selfish. In Franklin’s day the codes of behavior probably made it so the guy couldn’t reuse without violating his persona as a gentleman. Today many people can’t refuse a request without feeling like they are being rude, unless they can convince themselves that the request is unreasonable or something similar. Culturally, refusing a request without more reason than ‘I don’t like you’ violates our idea of how ‘good people’ behave.
I think this article gives a pretty strong argument for the elimination of grades at the college level. The people who are there to actually learn (as opposed to going just because “it’s the thing you’re supposed to do”) would become much more invested in their learning process.
It also gives credence to the psychological concept that the easiest way to demotivate someone who is doing something they love is to pay them for doing it, thus externalizing their motivation and making them hate it.
I almost went into that, but I’m going to save it for my next post – money.
Take someone who is doing his job fine with enthusiasm. Call him/her for a performance appraisal. Hurt their pride in work by comparing them with others. Send the “you are not good enough” and “try harder” message. Here the tables are turned. Instead of mending acts with a hater, the modern corporate lifestyle takes a guy who was not a hater but turns him into one.
Is there any better way out of this cycle, other than the current appraisal systems which pit one against the other and make each one hate the other one?
excellent read!
Fascinating post as always, David.
Oh, great… Now that I’ve complimented you, I like you even more!
Lulz. Thanks.
As always your articles are so intriguing for the mind. Each time I see them, I treat them as a personal challenge of my mind and at the same time, I must say, with a lot of guilt, that I try to see if I can challenge them. So here it goes:
I generally agree with your reasoning but it’s a qualified agreement:
I n the first part when you say,
You grow to like people for whom you do nice things and hate people you harm.
To me personally, it depends on what it is that I do for them or to them. We all have consciences too. I do. And I have always felt guilt afterwards if I did something bad to someone, or even if I did something not good enough. But this has always been in retrospect. This is where I give your article credit. In the spur of the moment, when you do it, you might bring a thousand reasons why you did that. But when you are alone, you might start thinking differently. That’s called conscience. Maybe what Mr. Franklin did ignited his conscience. It made him think he could change his attitude too.
From a different perspective too, when the favors you do for someone keep going unnoticed and they keep getting larger and being asked for or hinted at, you start doubting whether they are really nice.
This has been my experience that I am humbly sharing with you.
Furthermore, it works the other way too. When someone does something bad to you, you might hate them for it, but in retrospect you might sit and think why did they did this to me? Did I deserve it?
What’s more is, when your conscience is triggered, you try to make up for the wrong you did, and that’s why that gentleman kept his friendship with Mr. Franklin, not just because he asked him for a book or anything else.
i recall way back in the 70s, my sociology teacher having a lecture about something similar. he said, “you’re not crying because you’re sad, you’re sad because you’re crying.” that’s behavior affecting attitude, no? some days everything goes wrong and i find myself getting more and more furious at everything. from what i took from this lecture, i force a behavior to change my attitude, i just say “ha ha ha ha ha” several times and i find it really works! i calm down and lose my anger.
Very interesting read. However I’m tempted to argue that it doesn’t explain certain complexities in human social behavior.
For example, knowingly manipulative reciprocal arrangements that fuel tabloid type journalism, gossip and rumors. Both parties to that type of transaction know what’s what, and that it’s a mutually manipulative arrangement.
Similar dynamics occur in other social climbing hierarchies, where both sides are at least partially aware of the mutual manipulations but do it anyway, regardless of how they actually feel about the other party.
Isn’t it possible that Franklin’s unnamed opponent was well aware he was being manipulated and went along with the arrangement because it suited his own needs or ambitions (or at least believed it would do so)?
To some extent, the conclusions reached by the studies you’ve cited seem to depend on test subjects who may lack skeptical or cynical self-examination or self-awareness, at least in regard to the circumstances of the studies. Or is that self-awareness itself subject to manipulation by the perceived reward (tangible or otherwise, in the case of the test subjects who chose to return the fees)?
Perhaps the testing of skepticism or cynicism and mutually aware manipulation is a whole nuther area of social dynamics for another article.
Would you agree that regardless of whether the opponent was aware of the manipulation at the time of the request for a favor, his attitude towards Franklin changed over time from one of opposition to one of support?
“Support,” yes. But one doesn’t necessarily need to like a person to lend him support or allegiance, nor dislike a person to oppose him or withhold support or allegiance.
It probably doesn’t hurt our causes to employ the Franklin Effect where appropriate. But there’s a risk of alienating potential allies if we’re too transparently manipulative, especially if the desired ally is particularly cynical.
Nice Long post.
There can be many interpretations for a single behavior. So, my interpretation of that guys behavior goes like this –
No human wants to be in a conflict or a tense state. Its the very nature of mind to escape from any form of pain. The moment one becomes tense is the very moment the mind starts its business to seek some sort of release. NO one wants an enemy. If you hate someone , you can resolve it by making him a friend or you can resolve that inner tension by lambasting him. Whichever is the least resistant way is taken. That man had already tried lambasting Franklin. He probably did not get that release. In fact its only a temporary release that one gets. When Franklin asked him for a favor, it was a golden opportunity for the mind to pounce upon this and release the tension. to have a relief.
Hate is not a concept, its rather and impulse. Mind wants to explain or verbalize away the conflict caused by the impulse. If it is unable to do so then it takes appropriate actions which can even go to the extremes of suicide. Mind is always working as a means to an END. This end is always some sort of a release , a comforting point. The guy could have got this same comforting end through going to Franklin himself but that would have been a blow to his ego. When Franklin himself asked him for favor is when the defensive fall of ego could safely fall down.
It was simply that the guy like any human wanted release. He tried one method, it did not work. He got the opportunity to have relief and he took it. It was a dignifying opportunity especially considering the action he had taken earlier.
I pretty much agree with this revelation that you tend to hate people you have already done bad to. The simple way to look at it is that we tend to cling to an identity – i.e our perception of who we are. The fact is that you are what you are despite what you think you are. But this tendency to regularly CHECK oneself soon develops into a concept about yourself – who you are and how are you ‘supposed to’ behave……
It struck me that this is a good argument for compulsory volunteer work in high school. I complained mightily when I was 17 that I was being forced to “volunteer” but I got a lot out of it. It’s hard to stay angry when a six year old crawls into your lap for extra reading time or an elderly woman is chatting with you while you paint her nails.
why do you have a picture of you holding a gun? Are you trying to imply something?
Hi David, I greatly enjoyed reading your post, and I posted a response on my blog (http://alampros.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/the-benjamin-franklin-cause/) concerning the social power dynamic involved in the Benjamin Franklin Effect. Thanks for stimulating my thoughts with a great post!
Benjamin Franklin was the only President of the United States who was never President of the United States.
I try not to leave fan-boy comments, but I just want to say that, as a psychologist and marketer, “You Are Not So Smart” is consistently one of my favorite blogs. Despite the length, your posts are worth the read every time.
This was fantastic reading. Thank you!
Very good post.
What is interesting to me is that people read about human behavior in others but seldom see how they do it themselves.
For example, virtually every person reading this has constructed their lives and every belief that they have using the principles described in this article. People attain beliefs about the world, but most especially about themselves and who they are by agreeing with what others have said about them or by reacting against what people say about them. People create a construct of “self” and then go about their lives attempting to reinforce this self image. We will avoid people who have an opinion of us that contrast with our own. All of our friends are chosen and cultivated according to their ability to support our own self image, with as much visceral energy as in the example you gave of listening to a political program that we disagree with.
We are all telling stories about ourselves, and none of them are true. But that is all we know how to do.
Very nice. I appreciate the blogger who writes interestingly and in enough length to cover the subject. Franklin has always been a hero of mine and this only adds to his attraction.
Is there a chance this book will be made available in iBooks outside the US?
I would love to hit the buy button… (I am in Australia)
Sorry, linked the wrong post…
Will repost in the correct location…
First of all, this blog is AWESOME! ;) And congrats on having a book out.
That being said, has anyone of you guys heard of a study or experiment about the possibility of using cognitive dissonance to influence our own behavior? For example, after forcing yourself to do sit-ups for a few days your subconscious mind might go: “Hey, wait. WAIT! Why are we even doing this? We hate it, god dammit!”. A justification is needed to lessen the dissonance and there at least two possibilities. The first is of course you forcing yourself, the second – “Maybe working out isn’t all that bad”. The possibility of using self-inflicted Jedi mind tricks to change our own behavior for the better is fascinating, but the latter situation just sounds too good to be true ;)
Any thoughts on this?
(excuse my mistakes, english isn’t my native language)
It’s a fascinating premise, but I have to wonder if the single experiment cited is flawed in it’s execution.
It seems very likely to me that the “cover story” for the favor being asked may have itself boosted the student’s perception of the actor pretending to be the scientist.
Portraying him as someone using his own money to provide the winnings for an under-funded study could very well have caused that group to see him in a much more positive light, regardless of whether he had asked them to return the winnings.
The only way to rule that out would have been to insure that both of the other groups heard that same detail without being asked the “favor” or returning the winnings.
This was a VERY interesting read. Appreciate it.
Don’t listen to those who complain about the length, I merely noticed it was more than a couple of lines. Again, thanks.
I’m also interested. If there’s a published book similar this one please count me in. I consider myself a Franklinian for a couple of years now I’ve been following his works. Excellent writing David well done. Thanks a lot! ;)
>could borrow a selection from the his library,
Minor error there champ
My trick for becoming educated was to work 100+ hour shifts as a security guard, at posts with minimal contact with the public, while devouring what I could get from the libraries. Benjamin Franklin’s influence remains rather far-reaching.
If you do a favor for someone, but you think “Damn it, I don’t want to do this favor, but I can’t say no or it will go bad for me”…you’re not going to end up liking the person you’re helping.
David, first of all, let me say that I love the site. I’d really like to see you submit these posts to another blog I follow, LessWrong, which you’ve quoted before (http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/07/14/the-illusion-of-transparency/). I’m not sure if you ever post there or not, but your posts are really right up their alley. I pretty commonly link to the articles you post, but your material is really good and highly suitable for a post on the main page.
Very thought provoking article. I understand you have a book out now. I would imagine it is chock full of such gems! Could you loan it to me for a short period? Thanks!
Very insightful article. I was a psychology major in college and I feel like you have effectivly condensed 4 years of class into one highly stimulating article. I dont usually post on blogs but I felt it was my duty after getting through one this long and interesting. I guess this satisfied my cognitive dissonance, this article is a psychological experiment in iteself. Keep up the good work,
Cheers
I can’t even tell you how starved I am for writing like this…Really appreciate it! I am turning this on to my husband because he is such a great observer of human behavior. He is going to love your blog.
In that case, don’t forget to check out http://rsbakker.wordpress.com/
You’ll find some right acidic observation there.
Machiavelli also observed this, a couple centuries in advance of Franklin:
“It is the nature of men to feel as much obligated for benefits they confer as for those they receive.” — The Prince
I for one welcome an intelligently written piece that takes a longer attention-span than reading a tweet. More power to your elbow, as we say in the UK.
FASCINATING article! Thank you for giving me so much food for thought.
I am thinking especially of how this could be applied to the haters who exist online. I manage the social media operations for an entertainment company, and we see a fair measure of haters. Being nice and genteel sometimes just seems to feed and fuel their anger. I am curious if asking a favor like Mr. Franklin recommended would actually turn the Detractors into Advocates.
Thoughts?
At your service,
Michael
Of course it can. Trying to debate with a “hater” will only lead to further justification of their view.
Inviting them to participate in a survey so they can share their views for example, telling them you’d love to know more about what they dislike, and why…
Recruit them. Tell them their perspective matters. Ask them to help you.
While they may not all become outright advocates, it will certainly shift their position in many cases.
So hate does lead to suffering. Yoda was right!
Well said, even concisely considering the depth of the issue. I add this in response to some of the questions about how effective and or/unconscious this effect is. Most recent research with fMRIs show our brains get a ‘squirt’ of dopamine – a pleasure enzyme – when we make a decision – any and every decision. That creates a wonderful cycle of addiction: Make a decision, get a squirt of pleasure (AKA relief.) Therefore, we are addicted to the certainty/pleasure associated with a decision. Being in cognitive dissonance denies us a squirt because we have not chosen.
But, we are also blithely unaware of this addiction even though it has served us well throughout our evolution; making instantaneous choices to flee/fight/freeze means one avoided death or injury. Those who made quick decisions, even when they misjudged the extent of the danger, survived. He who hesitated was lost to our gene pool.
The good news is that every decision can also be changed – and we get a new squirt every time! To take it further, choosing to do something nice – or at least neutral – for someone gets us a squirt and that pleasure boost then effects other decisions, many of which we may not be conscious of on our way to eventually choosing to feel nice about this person.
Once you start dissecting (become conscious of) your behavior and attitudes and review the minute individual decisions you made to instill them, you possess a great power to also change every attitude and behavior. And you get the benefit of squirts. At least that’s the decision the researchers have made today.
I agree with NuMystic that the experiment with the researcher asking his money back seems flawed. I’d like to know if he kept to his mean spirited behaviour when doing the request (like, “give my money back, you stealing jerk”). Because if he asked nicely, that alone would get him sympathy. It was also a shame everyone returned the money because it would be more interesting to compare the evaluations by those who didn’t and those who did.
Also, wouldn’t this trick backfire if applied to those who consider themselves highly moral and charitable? If you take pride in helping others in need no matter who they are, helping someone you loathe isn’t going to cause cognitive dissonance. In fact, the more you hate the other person, the better a person you can think you are.
Long blog post = Stockholm syndrome
If you are like most people, you have high self-esteem and tend to believe you are above average in just about every way. It keeps you going, keeps your head above water, so when the source of your own behavior is mysterious you will confabulate a story which paints you in a positive light. If you are on the other end of the self-esteem spectrum and tend to see yourself as undeserving and unworthy, you will rewrite nebulous behavior as the result of attitudes consistent with the persona of an incompetent person, deviant, or whatever flavor of loser you believe yourself to be. Successes will make you uncomfortable so you will dismiss them as flukes. If people are nice to you, you will assume they have ulterior motives or are mistaken. Whether you love or hate your persona, you protect the self with which you’ve become comfortable. When you observe your own behavior, or feel the gaze of an outsider, you manipulate the facts so they match your expectations.
This just seems to be creating myths to counter other myths? As if, for example, you only ever assume people could have alterior motives and that’s only ever a persona projection or such. Which, unless your going to say no one has ever had ulerior motives ever, simply isn’t factual.
If you think of persona as hypothesis, it probably could be said that people stubbornly stick to their hypothesis (which possibly makes for good scienctific practice in a perverse way – a scientist runs a test thousands of times in science, before considering a result as always being the case – the scientist does’t give up on the test two or three times in. They enact a stubborn paradigm of thousands of tests before letting go of a particular conclusion).
But this whole “It’s just you, telling you that it’s this way”, no. Frankly that sounds like wish forfilment that really it all comes down to you. Sure, alot of fears and self congratulation might be bullshit. But some self congratulation actually correlates with circumstance. And so to, do some fears.
Being unsure which to pick out as which, that can screw us up. But trying to just saying we always confabulate a story? That’s simply myth weaving.
Franklin set out to turn his hater into a fan, but he wanted to do it without “paying any servile respect to him.” Franklin’s reputation as a book collector and library founder gave him a reputation as a man of discerning literary tastes, so Franklin sent a letter to the hater asking if he could borrow a selection from the his library, one which was a “very scarce and curious book.”
Asking politely still sounds like a servile respect to me? Please and thank you are a servile respect?
Could ol’ Ben and you be making up a story to forfil your sense that you are arch manipulators? When really your paying respect and…shock surprise, getting respect in return?
Zen Buddhist’s teaching would state that you are not your mind. You mind being your ego… unconscious and unaware of your inner being.
The problem I have with long form is that often -as is the case I feel here- the noise/information ratio tilts towards noise the longer it goes on.
Maybe a way to please everybody would be to have a *clear* distinction between a bite-size version at the top and expand -with for example other studies- afterwards for those whose curiosity isn’t sated?
When did concision become a bad thing?!
Your point is pretty good, but grammatically speaking your text is on some parts very poor. You repeat the word “Franklin” over 50 times… It really gets annoying at some point, but I do believe you are better then me grammatically speaking thought, but you just failed on looking at your text in an objective way…
I enjoyed the long article, although it is true on the computer it does lead to eye strain from staring so long! Nothing to do with your writing though, I’d rather get the whole thing than baby bites and you pretty much slay it with relevant examples. (You read much Ayn Rand?!) I’m looking froward to the money talk since I’m somewhat on the boat with that starving artist bunch.
Using Bem’s theory of self perception as an explanation for why asking a hater to do something might result in them being your friend is not the best choice. Actually, I think it’s just plain old wrong in this case. Not the theory, but his application of it here. Bem’s theory has more to do with how we perceive ourselves–and not really how to make someone else be your friend or see your perspective or change his or her beliefs.
There are several reasons why asking a favor of an asshole might result in him or her saying yes–most of them have nothing to do with making friends. It is more often the case that true assholes–especially narcissists–are strongly motivated to protect their self-image and self-enhance. There are several theories from the literature of self-enhancement and self-presentation to explain why a hater would agree to do a favor for you and still not be your true friend.
Basically, if someone who dislikes you, then does you a favor, the person who dislikes you will then think to himself “oh I dislike so-and-so, but he asked me a favor and I just did so-and-so a solid therefore I must be his friend.” But it’s also likely (probably more likely) that a TRUE hater is thinking “oh, i dislike so-and-so, but he asked me for a favor. he must need my help. He’s reaching out to me because I’m a better person. I will help him because I am such a great person.”
Also, I don’t see how any conversation about attitudes can be complete without mention of Eagly, Ajzen or Fishbein.
Sounds like biblical principles at work. Also, why is the word “hater” used so much in our present day discourse? I don’t like some people. I don’t like the style of some people. There are people I don’t like to be around. However, I don’t hate them. It seems to me that it’s not only a very strong acidic word, usually a cop out for people that don’t have a good argument why one should like a person or thing.
Hear hear. “Hater” is far too slangy for this sort of discourse.
Fine, but what motivates the initial rude or nice behavior in the first place? People’s behavior is not always consistent; Franklin’s hater might have disagreed with his political policies or whatever else, but when Franklin asked for a favor he perhaps thought it was his gentlemanly duty to lend him the book (if he had said no, wouldn’t it have seemed petty and childlike?). Afterwards, they had a chance to meet and talk, and perhaps in that opportunity, after talking to him in person, the so-called hater saw that Franklin was an alright guy after all. I don’t think I agree with applying the conclusions from the experiments about the Benjamin Franklin effect to absolutely every single situation of “behavior dictates feelings”.
That said, I love this post as much as I do all previous ones I have read because it leaves me with more questions than it answers, and that is a good thing.
REALLY loved this. just found you when a friend posted your article on procrastination on facebook, where i was currently… procrastinating.
Like many people full of drive and intelligence born into a low station, Franklin developed strong people skills and social powers.Not the theory, but his application of it here. Bem’s theory has more to do with how we perceive ourselves–and not really how to make someone else be your friend or see your perspective or change his or her beliefs.
This article brings to my mind the way we inconditionnaly love our children, especially when we try hard to be loving parents. It is clear to me that we love them so much because of all the things (sacrifices included) we do for them and not that we do all that because of our love for them. But I’m not sure many parents would acknowledge it.
Anyway, thanks for the article!
Justin Bieber’s name is misspelled. Very interesting article though.
“In 1957, psychologist Leon Festinger infiltrated a doomsday cult led by Dorothy Martin who called herself Sister Thedra. She convinced her followers in Chicago an alien spacecraft would suck them up and fly away right as a massive flood ended the human race on December 21, 1954.”
Um, sorry to be nit-picky (I’m a journalism student, editing’s all I do these days…), but could these dates be mixed up? I seem to recall reading that Festinger infiltrated the group before 1954, and that’s certainly what the ‘graphs around this passage imply.
Other than that, wonderful post – long form all the way!
Vote for a much shorter form, the one that gets to the bottom of a subject. Many of you may know about Dale Carnegie and his amazing books on making friends and building relations. Carnegie advocates exactly what Franklin used and it seems to work, though not commonly in real life. There are a lot ofreferences to Franklin;s autobio in his books. As for his autobio, its written in old English, though fascinating, hard to read at times. Thanks for the article.
” What they do show is that if a person voluntarily goes through a difficult or a painful experience in order to attain some goal or object, that goal or object becomes more attractive.”
This is in precise accordance with Rene Girard’s theory of Mimetic Desire. Have you read his work? The same is true about your discussion the way we revile our scapegoats.
Perhaps if we wake each day to help…..all we can, in each way we can, we the people may again be admired, respected…perhaps even feared for our faith in each other and our ability to set reachable goals that not only help us but all in it…(it being our little bit of real ass state….Our Lives And How We Improve And Amaze Thru Hard Work AT HELPING.)…To me? The Meaning of this life is to improve this life….my place of worship? Gulf of Mexico. Plenty of time for the next life when i am dead…god aint gonna pack up anytime soon if still in the hood. Been Capt. Brian Box for 40 years..for 13 b 4 just b. box….Another boat captain taught me that each and every day should treasured, Capt. Doc Jones, My GPop said..”Boy, when you quit learning, you quit living.” Aye! At 53, I wake each day to help……in any and every way I can. Not near as hard to look in the mirror and like the dude as it usta was…
luck and love.
bbox, just bbox.
I enjoyed reading this “long form” article. Very informative, I didn’t feel it was too long at all. It was full of information, made points, came to conclusions and ended. Very well done. Just the way I like to read something :)
I don’t believe I’d ever heard of the Benjamin Franklin Effect before. I realized that it was precisely this kind of behavior that ‘persuaded’ members of a church I used to attend to stay, even though we may not have like the leadership at first. The church, very big in the 90′s and considered by many a cult, was growing rapidly, almost out of anyone’s control, and it always boggled the mind as to why anyone was sticking around (when we took a moment to actually think about it). The leaders were always asking the minions for favors – to pick up dry cleaning, to drive them somewhere, to watch their kids – quite frequently impositions on the part of the minion (myself being one). But we did it, and because we were being asked by someone of “leadership” we did it gladly because that’s what God would have wanted (don’t be a burden to your leaders, etc.). To do things for others with a happy heart. It was our ‘opportunity’ to serve (at someone else’s beck and call). Eventually, we all grew to like and admire the leadership. In hindsight, many of the leaders were awkward, social misfits who would have been relegated to a fringe group in the ‘real world.’ But in the church family they were accepted and respected and supported. These were not stupid people, and they eventually learned enough social skills and picked up social cues to become likeable and “acceptable” to even the “outside” world.
There is a lot to think about in this article and thanks for writing it. I am glad I discovered this site!
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. I’m buying the book.
Just found this blog today, excellent work! It’s refreshing to read such a thorough article on a blog; can’t wait to get the book!
So glad I stumbled upon your post! I’ve added you to my Google reader and look forward to reading more of your very insightful posts.
wow! Great post.
great article. I studied this stuff as a psych undergrad and I think about it often, and yet not nearly as often as it applies, I know.
I had to pick one nit: this is not why volunteering feels good. sure, this is why it can seem enjoyable to work hard at something you don’t normally give a damn about. but volunteering and hard work feel good for a rash and roster of reasons, IMO most of which are stronger than cognitive dissonance.
* having a discrete, definable, singleminded goal can be a relief from option paralysis
* reaching those goals can boost our sense of worth through achievement
* spending a day doing this stuff can be a very pleasant vacation from our normal “real” life, our day job, our dysfunctional family, etc
* physical labor at a mildly challenging level feels good
* perceiving the self as generous makes one happy
and oh yes:
* helping something we deeply care about is satisfying and makes life seem actually meaningful!
I love the cognitive dissonance bandwagon but it’s a bit like chronic fatigue or ADD or serotonin or whatever other powerful buzzwords are fashionable for explaining EVERYTHING, especially the stuff that appears to contradict itself, in a sort of post hoc / ad hoc / de facto / e pluribus unum way, but I digress. and I was kidding about the e pluribus unum.
And neither are the psychobabblologists
Fascinating article, but I’m left thinking that cognitive dissonance and the “Franklin effect” may be more illusion than reality.
I suspect that this is a subtle misunderstanding of what’s actually going on in most of these cases.
It’s typically not that doing something nice for someone makes you like them, so much as doing something nice for them influences their perception of you in such a way that they then start treating you better, thereby turning them into someone who you like better.
If you had never done the nice thing for them, but they had still *perceived* that you had done a nice thing for them, they would probably start treating you better and soon you’d like them better even though you’d never done anything to make disliking them create cognitive dissonance for you.
For example, the teacher who either praised a learner for doing well or criticized a learner for doing poorly probably, by these actions, caused the former learners to feel competent and look happy, and caused the latter learners to feel dumb and look unhappy, and those responses are what made the teacher like the former group better.
And, think about when the rude researcher asks for his $20 back. Until then, he’s just been a jerk and the subjects were just annoyed at him. But suddenly he asks them for a favor, and thereby he’s made himself more vulnerable and, fundamentally, more likable and less rude. I suspect that if he’d maintained the rudeness factor by angrily snapping at them, “Hey kid! I just realized I’m running out of funds, so I need that money back. Give it here!” they wouldn’t all have given it back, and the ones who did wouldn’t have liked him any better. So it may be that, rather than liking him more in response to seeing themselves do something nice for him, they liked him more in response to being exposed to a nicer side of him that the other groups didn’t see.
And perhaps the students who read from Lady Chatterley’s Lover lied and said they thought the film about the mating habits of birds was interesting because they wanted to be selected for the club, thinking that the club would also involve reading more stimulating material, not because they actually enjoyed the film more than the students who read from the dictionary and were perfectly happy not to be selected for this club that involved doing two boring activities.
And maybe the students paid $20 to do the boring peg-turning tasks assumed that because they had to pay so much to get people to do it, it must be a really boring task, so they just sat there going through the motions, whereas the people paid $1 for the same task sat there trying to figure out what the researchers were so fascinated about, and so they were simply more engaged and actually were less bored during the study because they weren’t predisposed to assume it was just a boring task by the high payment. I wonder if they’d have found the same result if the students had been given the differing payments after the study was over instead of being told about them before the study.
The fact that all of these studies seem to have design flaws that open them to interpretations that don’t involve cognitive dissonance makes me suspect that if and when these researchers ever tried studies without any design flaws, they failed to demonstrate the desired results.
In the case of Franklin, perhaps Franklin had inadvertently done something that the guy had perceived as a personal slight, so the guy was laboring under the mistaken impression that Franklin didn’t like *him*. Then, when Franklin asks him for a favor, the guy realizes he must have been wrong (because who would ask you for a favor if they didn’t like you?), so it’s not the fact that he saw himself do something nice for Franklin that made him like Franklin better, but rather, it’s the request for the favor itself that shattered his illusion that Franklin didn’t like him and thereby freed him to like Franklin.
One place where I suspect cognitive dissonance probably *does* actually come into play is in the minds of the people who ran these flawed studies which they misinterpreted as confirming their pet theory (cognitive dissonance), but which were actually poorly designed so as to allow the subject’s behaviors to affect the behaviors of the people they’re being evaluated for liking or disliking.
Now I wonder if Mr. McRaney’s cognitive dissonance over having spent the time to write this article will induce him to ignore my ideas here, or to dismiss them as somehow mis-interpreting the research…
No, he’s going to ignore your ideas because he doesn’t read his comments after two days.
I see :) Thanks for the warning.
Dear David, or somabody of the readers,
I’m not an english-speaker, could you help me to understand the word ‘cajolative’ (“a cache of cajolative secret weapons”), can’t find it NOwhere:-( It hasn’t interfered with my understanding the idea of the article, but I need to understand this term.
Thank you in advance, I like all of your articles I’ve read (not so many, but I’m in process:-)).
It means “for cajoling”, i.e., weapons that can be used to gently influence people to do what you want. Cajolative isn’t a real word. It’s an form derived from the real verb “cajole” by tacking on the standard adjective ending “-ative”.
Neo, I wish there was a way to LIKE a comment on blogs!! :-)
Thank you! Now I got it!:-D
There’s a douchebag colleague of mine at work with whom I’ve always had a really crappy relationship. He hates me and I wouldn’t piss down his throat if his heart was on fire.
I’ve just sent him a Benjamin Franklin stealthbomb of my own asking if he can use his really excellent source network to help me with a project I’m working on. Will let you know what happens…
Is our saying “blow me” and “suck my dick” to people we dislike a crude attempt to employ the Franklin effect? If we can just get them to do us that favor, they’ll really start to like us…
UPDATE: The guy’s still a douchbag and I still wouldn’t piss down his throat if his heart was on fire. It didn’t work. Oh Benjamin!
if that was true, nobody would hate their bosses or that stupid cousin that keeps asking you to fix their computer.
This is an interesting and thought provoking post; thanks for sharing it.
You are falling for heizenburg’s principle and your own biases as a psychologist…You are saying and mandating that behavior causes attitudes. But you as an outside observer would have easier access to a subject’s behaviors than their attitudes. I don’t care if you showed me hundreds of experiments where it was shown that behavior significantly influenced attitudes, this apparent universality comes from the the fact that in all those cases you have an experimenter poking and proding a subject. This is your own hands in the data that are causes the results of behavior over emotional importance. If a subject reports that their emotion determined a certain behavior, then that’s the end of the psychology behind the event. It didn’t happen any differently if a person with a degree in psychology told them it was different, although their are plenty of examples where a rando person in a lab coat could convince most people of ANYTHING.. What do you think about that?
A well written article with much that is good to know. The best of luck to you with your book and blog :) I invite you to drop by the Questioning Way Blog http://questioningway.wordpress.com/ Good stuff to be found there.
Do I have to like that Bieber punk now? I may not be that smart, but I recognize true evil when I see it!
Jog your memory read wordpress.com
You tend to like the people to whom you are kind and dislike the people to whom you are rude. (me to) It’s difficult to hurt someone you admire. (I feel the same way) What or you trying do make incriminate myself, my anxiety comes from not have a wife, and since my do, how many other males will deny that there’s does?
Your Not So Smart? I bet you can’t solve an optical illusion?
Stereotypes: How do politics and statistics make up for American Values? Don’t you recognize that there is a decline? Are that you’re looking at an optical illusion? (e.g. It was this guy, he seen me standing out on the side of the road. Maybe it was in Oklahoma or Texas. I don’t know where I was, anyway he let me make known to him my situation. After that, he took me inside this restaurant to have breakfast and a cup of coffee. Luckily; he wasn’t a stranger but a pastor from a church that was in the area. Don’t remember all of what we talked about, but for the most part we had a decent conversation. He gave me this to pieces of paper that created a transparency. One piece red, one piece blue. When you match both pieces together they appear that they are the same size, when you hold them up next to each other side by side. It creates an Optical Illusion, it was amazing because for nothing in the world it was impossible to figure out why the two pieces of paper did that; What was it?)
Benjamin Franklin can’t solve this?
Well, I’m a little late to the party here, but I really enjoyed this arcticle, the whole way through I was relating to past and current experiences – and it all added up.
In fact, most points here I was able to relate to me somehow – from crediting successes as flukes (in the past) to taking them for granted, and definitely the need for justification in terms of working for money and ect (Although, I had come to terms with that, but I still conform and felt the need to justify it to the rest of the world, same as watching/listening to something terrible)
In terms of the article, I was put off at first by all the text, but I had found what I had skimmed through interesting, and on second read (where I actually read it), I found it very enjoyable, and was even dissappointed when it ended, I guess I was expecting something longer.
So thanks for that, I’ll come back and skim through to find a few other peices that catch my eye.
I am very glad I discovered your blog. I have been a student of philosophy & psychology since an early age. I have always believe that there is an innate need to be in control &
that much of our flawed thinking comes from attempting to validate such an assumption.
Cheers,
David K
Absolutely fabulous insights. Previous complaints about the length of this post probably came from people who needed to justify their inability to sit still and absorb some of them less comfortable aspects of this brilliant essay; the concepts that gave them a “cerebral sunburn.” Their inability to focus on the material needs justification so the essay becomes inconveniently time-consuming.
They’re all schmucks from whom you should request a nice favor.
Congratulations on the book. It should be required reading in every college in America.
The stuff about liking the people you assist is great! It’s a perfect example of Buddhist principles. When you cultivate your capacity for compassion, you benefit yourself and everyone else.
The discussion of cognitive dissonance was interesting but off-topic I think. That’s worthy of a separate article.
Speaking of cognitive dissonance, I’ve been wondering about it lately. Seems like it was one of the first carefully-documented cognitive biases. Now that so many other cognitive biases have been studied and named, does cognitive dissonance still deserve a category unto itself? Or does it conflate several well-known cognitive biases, more recently described? I’m inclined to think that’s so. What do you think?
By the way, the term “cognitive dissonance” is being rendered useless by changes in common usage. Normally, when the term is employed in the popular press and media, it’s used incorrectly. Very few lay people or journalists understand what it actually means. (In the popular press, it’s usually used to denote a subjective feeling of discomfort experienced when two contradictory beliefs are simultaneously contemplated.)
Regarding the blog comments — I’m all in favor of democracy and free speech and all, but the vast majority of the blog comments are not of general interest. I don’t like digging through all that dross, looking for the few gold nuggets. Like dozens of comments about whether the Benjamin Franklin Effect post was too long.
I suggest you consider removing these, or maybe offer some kind of hide/show buttons for public comments not likely of general interest. Possibly combined with thumbs up/down buttons for promoting the more interesting comments, demoting the others.
Great stuff here. Keep it coming.
Your Vonnegut quote reminds me of a corollary view, which seems (to me) more true:
“The less you pretend to be, the more you are.” – Queng We
This actually does work, I’ve tried it.
In high school a girl started writing all of these angry comments on my Myspace pictures, mocking me and clearly trying to provoke me.
She probably subconsciously wanted me to get back at her so she could get out her anger at something. Otherwise, why would she do it?
So I sent her a message that completely threw her off:
“Hey, thanks for taking the time to comment on my photos. I hope your summer’s going well. :)”
She replied, astonished:
“Wow…that was a lot nicer than I expected. You too.”
Kindness is the best revenge.
Hey you guys. It’s silly to post comments saying “this works,” or “this didn’t work,” based on anecdotes. The anecdotes are interesting and worth posting in their own right, but these are only average effects. They are not going be evident in every case.
nice one
Dear Admin, it’s urgent. Please get in touch with me as soon as you can. Thanks.
Long, short, doesn’t matter, it’s your blog. :) Folks can read it or not read it. This was a superbly written and informative piece. One thing that struck me was the change in Franklin’s “hater” could also have been influenced by the very prompt return of the tome (1 week). I wasn’t sure from what’s written if Franklin even read it. And it would be pure brilliant gamesmanship if he didn’t. Probably did. But that’s not the point. The simple act of professionally and respectfully borrowing and promptly returning displayed great character in Franklin the “hater” couldn’t dispute nor would think twice about doing a favor for him again in the future i.e. when “esteemed political adversaries”. Couple that with flattering the “hater” on his literary collection and advertised intellect given said collection. Franklin seemed to play on the “hater’s” elevated opinion of himself shrewedly cultivating power and influence.
Wow, this was fasinating! Psychology is a passion of mine, and I appreciate your knowledge on this!
This sounds like something I experienced as a kid, actually. I was in gymnastics in my tweens, and my instructor always told me that falling off of the equipment would hurt more if I expected it to hurt. And she was right! Bruising my knees or elbows hurt more on the times that I knew I would fall then the times when I was surprised to fall. If I was afraid of falling, it would hurt! But there were other times that I was convinced of my safety, and hitting the floor felt like landing on a pillow. Interesting how our perceptions of our experiences are influenced by our expectations of ourselves.
It is appropriate time to make some plans for the long run and it’s time to be happy. I’ve read this put up and if I may I want to counsel you some attention-grabbing issues or suggestions. Perhaps you can write subsequent articles referring to this article. I desire to learn even more things about it!
No wonder Bill Gates donated so much money.
All the ass kissers are probably endorsing the long format just to please the author.
How predictable of the flock.
PS: I personally prefer the long format.
I once heard of this doomsday cult that has a prophet that was born of a virgin, walks on water and turns water into wine. If you dont believe them for any reason they will send you to this place where you’ll suffer for eternity.
Sounds a lot like the cult mentioned in the article.
One thing that did cross my mind was that the experiment that researchers have carried out was an isolated incidence but what about asking for favours repeatedly over time?
From personal experience people that repeatedly asks for favours tend to become extremely annoying.
On the other hand, you may probably add Stockholm syndrome to the list of related psychological behaviours.
Interesting article but its a bit long for the above average person to read and understand, especially in the new and quasi-improved 160 carchter society.
So in short do you thik people hate because they are assholes, or they are assholes because they hate?
I think Ben was no different than most people — he was out to move Ben forward. If he caused little pain to others, all the better, but Ben’s goal was to improve Ben’s lot in life. And after all, whats the problem with that anyways if you don’t run under some sort of absolute authority that demands good?
Thanks for adding some value to a world so lacking in it.
Reblogged this on the cornerofbillspool.
So you’ve borrowed it permanently? I wonder if that will make David McRaney like you permanently.
I too observed the effect but have never had a theory about why it seems to happen. (On neutrals, I don’t recall trying it with enemies).
Arz Sra’s explanation seems more likely to me in the specific case with Ben Franklin;- but I’m no expert.
I think I now value the Ben Franklin effect more, because I just spent more time than I should have reading about it.
when I first saw how long this article was, I was almost going to leave, glad I read it, and can’t wait til my column goes beyond the 700-1000 words I’m constricted to. great subject. I may have to get your book, but all the other books i have tht I haven’t read yet would be really pissed at me.
I am a loyal reader but i dont like to comment usually, but right now i just thought i would let you know my thanks. cheers!
i disagree about turning this post into several short ones.
it does need some more proof reading though.
I was just talking about this effect less than an hour ago. However I didn’t know about the part that we grow to dislike people we’ve harmed. There is only one person I hate and in no way have I ever harmed the guy. I hate him because he has done terrible things to me and people I know… so this exception that proves the rule?
He didn’t say you grow to dislike ONLY those people you’ve harmed. There are other causes for disliking someone. Also, “exception that proves the rule” is folk-logic derived from a change in the meaning of “prove”. It’s not a legitimate assertion of anything.
Reblogged this on Sean Patrick John Paul George Ringo Doran.
Woah this blog is great i like studying your articles. Stay up the great work! You recognize, lots of people are looking round for this info, you could help them greatly.
Great article, thanks! I’m in sales and I just learned something. :)
Just the worst article ever. Had my interest piqued after the first paragraph, but then just went on and on with awful analogies and terribly put together lists. I genuinely want to know more about the phenomenon, but couldn’t get through your article it was THE WORST. Figure it out boss.