Benyamin Franklin Effect

Use The Franklin Effect to sort potential relationships, weed out unlikely ones and establish a fine rapport with others. Let's see what it is and how it works.

How do you get people to like you?

Definitely, there are people among our relatives, friends, colleagues that might dislike us or we may like to impress them and make them like us. Don't be mistaken, we're not talking about love, but actually about building rapport with people around us which is a very serious matter in our social and business interactions. We cannot simply ignore or eliminate our rivals, haters, or enemies; in fact, if you want to succeed in your life and career, you shouldn't simply weed your enemies out, but there are ways to turn them to some reliable friends. Yes, there are communication skills and techniques to develop a logical relationship with people and each technique might be suitable for some situations and might fail in the others. In this post, we are highlighting one practical psychological phenomenon called Benyamin Franklin Effect which is specifically relevant to the way we can handle our haters and develop better connections. 

What's Benyamin Franklin Effect?

If a person willingly does a favor to you, he tends to do even more favors in contrast to the person to whom you do a favor; as when you help someone, you put that person in a situation that he thinks he has to return the favor; in other words you oblige him. This effect can be best explained by using the psychological theory called 'cognitive dissonance' which states that having two contradictory beliefs lead to mental discomfort or conflict; how is this related to Franklin effect? well, when a person helps someone that he initially hated, the idea of helping and the idea of hating that person would remain contradictory or dissonant in his mind, in order to reduce and justify such mental dissonance, the person tends to increase his liking for the recipient of the favor.

Cognitive dissonance 

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological term, which refers to the lack of harmony in someone's beliefs or when someone’s behavior goes completely against their beliefs. The Benjamin Franklin effect is a cognitive bias that causes people to like someone more after they help that person, especially if they previously didn't like that person or felt neutral toward them. 

History

To ease the tension between his rival and him, Benyamin tried to ask the person for some help; he sent a letter and asked the man to lend him one of his rare books and his rival accepted to do it instantly; after some time, Benyamin returned the book along with a thank-you note; the next time they met, the man approached Benyamin and that was the start of their lifelong relationship; Benyamin never disclosed his name and this story has been told in his autobiography where he emphasizes the power of this technique. 

How does it work?

Nobody likes condescending attitude or behavior as this undermines them and they get a sense of inferiority; to tackle such behavioral issues, giving others the chance to feel superior might ease the situation down; once one has the opportunity to oblige others, and finds the recipient of the favor vulnerable, he does all that it takes to show his support and this helps the relationships get more powerful step by step.

Is the effect practical & efficient all the time?

Let's not forget that, this might not work 100% for everyone and every situation; but why not to give it a shot and be sincere in what we're doing to get the most from our interactions. Have you ever tried this effect on anyone? Do you find it effective? Now that you know about this effect, can you think of a situation where you've been the victim of this effect? ;)

Build Rapport By Benyamin Franklin Effect

Robi B