United States, Relationships, Reciprocity

The Ben Franklin Effect

In 1736 Benjamin Franklin was chosen clerk of the Pennsylvania General Assembly. The next year, when he stood again, a new member made a long speech against him, to favor another candidate. Franklin did not try to win the man over with flattery. He heard that the man owned “a certain very scarce & curious Book.” He wrote him a note and asked to borrow it.

The man sent the book at once. Franklin returned it about a week later with a note of thanks. The man then spoke to him for the first time. They stayed friends until the man died. In his Autobiography, Franklin explains it with a maxim: “He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged.”

The Vocabulary of Favors

American English has many everyday phrases for giving, owing and returning favors.

I owe you one. I will repay this favor.

I’ll return the favor. I will do something of equal value for you later.

You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. If you help me, I will help you.

Call in a favor. Ask someone to repay a favor they owe you.

Can I pick your brain? Can I ask you for advice or information?

Happy to make an intro. I will introduce you to someone I know.

Much obliged. Thank you. Literally, I am in your debt.

No strings attached. Nothing is expected in return.

Givers, Takers and Matchers

In 2013 Adam Grant, a professor at the Wharton School, published Give and Take. He sorts people at work into three types. Takers like to get more than they give. Givers pay more attention to what other people need from them. Matchers try “to preserve an equal balance of giving and getting.” Grant puts the share of matchers at about 55 to 60 percent.

One of his examples of a giver is Adam Rifkin, a serial entrepreneur whom Fortune named its best networker in 2011. Rifkin follows a rule he calls the five-minute favor: “You should be willing to do something that will take you five-minutes or less for anybody.”

Calling In Favors

In his book Influence, first published in 1984, the psychologist Robert Cialdini states the rule of reciprocation: “we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us.” He describes an experiment by Dennis Regan of Cornell University. His assistant posed as a subject. He bought some subjects a Coke and later asked them to buy raffle tickets. They bought twice as many as those who got nothing.

Cialdini then turns to Washington. Lyndon Johnson, he writes, produced a remarkable amount of legislation as president “by calling in those favors.” Jimmy Carter had trouble with Congress from the start. Cialdini suggests that much of it may be traced to the fact that “no one there was indebted to him.”

Givers Gain

BNI, short for Business Network International, is built on a two-word philosophy: “Givers Gain.” Ivan Misner founded it in 1985, with about 20 people in a coffee shop in Arcadia, California. Members bring each other referrals, and they expect business to come back to them in return.

Chapters meet every week. Each profession may have only one member in a chapter. At the meetings, members hand out referrals and report the business they have closed. BNI says it has more than 355,000 members around the world.

The Favor Bank

In Tom Wolfe’s novel The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), a defense lawyer explains how the New York criminal courts work. “Everybody does favors for everybody else. Every chance they get, they make deposits in the Favor Bank.”

Citibank survey

A recent survey of Citibank branches in four countries (the United States, Germany, China, and Spain) was conducted to determine the most effective persuasion methods for employees to use in order to convince their colleagues to do a favor for them. All four countries had very different results.

The survey showed that Americans are more likely to be persuaded to help their colleagues if there’s something in it for them, or if they owe their colleagues a favor. They tended to ask questions like “What will I get out of this?” and “What has this person done for me?”

Germans, on the other hand, were more likely to be persuaded to help if the favor stayed within the rules of the organization. They tended to ask questions like “According to the official regulations, am I supposed to help?”