Ben Franklin in Stockholm

The reciprocity norm, tit for tat, the golden rule, the many names of the basic decency in us. At the same time a bayesian-evolutionary cooperative Nash equilibrium to which we have successfully converged.

The rule of reciprocation gives us a strong gut feeling that good deeds ought to be returned, which results in community cohesion and competitive advantage for a group, a society and a whole species. Those who only take and never give are usually hated, punished and ostracized (unless they manage to go unobserved).

Just as our preference for sweet-tasting food (ripe fruits) has been hijacked by the chocolate industry, our reciprocation sense is ruthlessly exploited by marketers, salespeople and master negotiators. When we taste a food sample from the supermarket, we feel obliged to buy something, or at least to listen carefully to the sales pitch. When we get a candy with the receipt, we feel obliged to buy more next time, even if we know it is a cheap trick. When we are flattered, we are more likely to give favors even though we claim to be rational and just. To avoid being seen (or seeing oneself) as ingrate or as a moocher, we overcompensate and engage in disproportionate reciprocation to the great satisfaction of waiters and cab drivers.

People are nice: researchers sent out "Merry Christmas" postcards to random strangers, and got enthusiastic replies from a significant portion of them. Many of the recipients added them to their list of friends to send postcards to on all occasions (this was before people got used to spam).

Nothing revolutionary so far, just Marketing and Psychology 101. The surprise lies in a more subtle and somewhat contradictory phenomenon, the Ben Franklin effect.

An acute observer, Benjamin Franklin noticed that political opponents became more sympathetic and easier to persuade if at some point he asked them a small favor, such as to borrow a book from them. They were both flattered and comforted by the fact that Ben Franklin owed them a book/favor.

Distilled in B.F.'s own words:

He that has once done you a Kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.

The psychological explanation is that people engage in post hoc rationalizing: "Why did I do a favor to this person ?" "It must be because I like him so much."

The effect readily explains a large number of social phenomena and has been tried experimentally: participants in an experiment were given cash reward. After the experiment the professor asked some participants (randomly selected) to give back the reward (on some made up grounds). Most of them complied. In a later study, those who were asked to give the money back were found to have a much better opinion of the professor than those who were not asked such favor.

At an extreme, this might explain the Stockholm-syndrome as well (where captives become sympathetic to their captors).

If one can prepare to defend against an exploit of the reciprocation norm, by simply not asking or accepting favors, the Ben Franklin effect is devastating: you ask me a small favor in order to ask a greater one later and I will gladly comply. You abuse me, and I'll love you even more. A tragic corollary of this effect is that in war we end up hating our victims. The more innocent they are, the more negative our feelings become.

But how can both effects work at the same time, how can they be reconciled when there is seemingly a contradiction ? Are there some cases in which one is stronger than the other ?
Does it depend on whether the favor is asked for or not, or on some other variable ? Are there personality types more vulnerable to one or the other ? How to prepare against being tricked by car-salesmen who use one of these effects ? Where is a resident psychologist when we need one ?