为什么我们喜欢向自己求助的人
2024-06-18 05:27阅读：
来做一个小测试。甲帮了你一个忙。乙请你帮他一个忙。你更可能喜欢谁？答案：乙。
这似乎有违直觉。难道我们不是会喜欢那些帮过我们的人吗？不一定。在通常情况下，正好相反：我们不喜欢对我们好的人。我们喜欢自己以和善态度对待的人。这种人性的奇怪之处被称为富兰克林效应。它在很大程度上解释了人际关系是如何运作的，以及如何改善人际关系。
1736年，本杰明·富兰克林在担任宾夕法尼亚州议会的办事员时偶然发现了这一现象。当时，一位颇具影响力的新州议员并不喜欢富兰克林，扬言要让他的日子不好过。怎么办？富兰克林本可以卑躬屈膝地讨好这位州议员，但他采取了不同的方式。
在听说此人拥有一本珍贵的书籍后，富兰克林问他能不能出借几天。此人同意了，后来富兰克林按时归还并附上一张言辞友善的纸条。富兰克林在自传中回忆说：“当我们下一次在众议院见面时，他过来与我交谈(他以前从未这样做过)，而且彬彬有礼。”两人很快成为了朋友。富兰克林从中获得的启示就是：“曾经帮过你的人会比你帮过的人更愿意再帮你。”
但我们如何解释富兰克林效应呢？为什么我们喜欢向我们求助的人？
一些心理学家指出，认知失调是一种解释。人很难同时持有两种互相矛盾的想法。这让我们不舒服。我们会通过改变想法来化解这种矛盾。我们也许会想：“我不喜欢乔，但我在帮助乔。所以，也许我终究还是喜欢他的。”
尽管认知失调可以在很大程度上解释富兰克林效应，但这一概念并不是唯一的解释。2015年的一项研究发现，另一个原因在于“请求本身所传达的亲和动机”。具体而言，我们人类希望与其他人保持良好的关系，而实现这一点的一个途径就是帮别人忙。这被称为“互惠倾向”，它在很大程度上解释了利他主义行为。
我们喜欢提供帮助，延伸开来就是，我们喜欢给我们机会这样做
的人。这一点刻在我们的基因里。正如考古学家理查德·利基在他的书中所写的：“我们之所以是人类，是因为我们的祖先学会了在一个受到尊崇的人情网中分享食物和技能。”富兰克林效应强化了这种人情网。
然而，我们对富兰克林效应仍有很多不了解的地方。它是同样适用于不同文化，还是某些群体更容易受其影响？这种效应是否有一个限度？是否存在一个点，过了这个点再找人帮忙就会降低而不是提升你的讨喜程度？借本书是一回事，借辆车就是另外一回事了。
富兰克林效应的实际意义是深远的。希望结交新朋友的人应该明智地利用这一现象。日本法政大学教授、研究富兰克林效应的新谷优说，这种策略在两个人彼此认识时奏效，甚至在陌生人之间也能奏效，这表明，“无论是对于维持或巩固现有关系还是对于开启一段新关系，它可能都是一种可行的策略”。
在商界，渴望吸引忠实客户的公司请客户帮忙堪称明智之举，例如请后者帮助设计一种新产品。乐事薯片2012年发起的“帮我们设计一个口味”活动正是这样做的。该公司向消费者征集新口味。最后胜出的是芝士大蒜面包味。此次活动后，乐事薯片的销量大涨。
Why We Like People Who Ask Us for Favors
BY ERIC WEINERJUNE
Here’s a quick quiz. Person A does a favor for you. Person B asks
you to do a favor for him. Who are you liable to like more? The
answer: Person B.
It seems counterintuitive. Wouldn’t we favor those who do us
favors? Not necessarily. Often, the opposite is true: We don’t like
people who are nice to us. We like people to whom we are nice. This
quirk of human nature, known as the Ben Franklin Effect, explains a
lot about how relationships work, and how we might improve
them.
Benjamin Franklin stumbled across the phenomenon in 1736 when
serving as clerk to the Pennsylvania Assembly. A powerful new
member of the assembly, “a gentleman of fortune, and education,”
didn’t care for Franklin and threatened to make life miserable for
him. What to do? Franklin could have kowtowed to this member and
attempted to win him over with flattery. But he took a different
approach.
Having heard that the man owned a rare and valuable book, Franklin
asked if he could borrow it for a few days. The man agreed, and
Franklin returned it dutifully with a nice note. “When we next met
in the House he spoke to me, (which he had never done before) and
with great civility,” Franklin recalled in his autobiography. The
two became fast friends. Franklin’s takeaway: “He that has once
done you a kindness will be ready to do you another, than he whom
you yourself have obliged.”
Several studies have confirmed this. In 1969, psychologists Jon
Jecker and David Landy enlisted 74 volunteers to take part in an
academic contest, with cash prizes for the top performers. After
the contest, they were (secretly) divided into three groups. The
first group was approached by the lead researcher, purposely acting
like a “rather distasteful individual” who asked each contestant to
do him a favor and return the money they won; he had been using his
own funds and was running short. The second group was approached by
an office assistant who also asked contestants to return the money,
claiming it was a drain on the psychology department’s anemic
budget. The third group was simply allowed to keep their winnings.
Participants were then asked to gauge the likability of the lead
researcher. Those in the first group had a much more positive
impression of him than did those in the third group. (The same did
not hold true for those in the second group, suggesting that an
indirect, outsourced request for a favor does not endear you to
others.)
It mattered not how much money participants were asked to forsake.
What mattered was the direct request for a favor. Jecker and
Landy’s conclusion: “Under certain circumstances, when an
individual performs a favor for another person, his liking for that
person will increase.” Several subsequent studies reached the same
conclusion, though with a few refinements. The Ben Franklin Effect
is more pronounced when it involves a social request (asking for
advice) rather than a transactional one (asking for money). Timing
is important too: rather than waiting, it's best make a request
soon after meeting someone for the first time.
But how can we explain the Ben Franklin Effect? Why do we like
those who ask favors of us? Some psychologists point to cognitive
dissonance as an explanation. It’s difficult to hold two
contradictory thoughts at the same time. It makes us uncomfortable.
We resolve this tension by changing our mind. “I don’t like Joe,
but I am doing a favor for Joe,” we might think. “So maybe I do
like him after all. “
While cognitive dissonance explains a lot, this concept alone
doesn’t explain the Ben Franklin Effect. One 2015 study found that
it was, rather, the “affiliative motive that the request conveys.”
That is, we humans want to maintain good relations with other
humans, and one way to achieve this is by doing favors for others.
Known as the “reciprocation bias,” it explains a lot about
altruistic behavior. We like being useful and, by extension, we
like those who give us the opportunity to do so. It is in our
genes. As the archaeologist Richard Leakey wrote in his book People
of the Lake, “We are human because our ancestors learned to share
their food and their skills in an honored network of obligation.”
The Ben Franklin Effect supercharges that network of
obligation.
Yet there is much we still don’t know about the Ben Franklin
Effect. Does it apply equally across cultures, or are some
communities more prone to it? Does it have a limit? Is there a
point beyond which asking a favor of someone makes you less, not
more likable? Asking to borrow a book is one thing; asking to
borrow a car is another.
Or is it? Ben Franklin himself stretched the limits of the
psychological phenomenon that bears his name. While serving as U.S.
representative to France during the Revolutionary War, he asked
favors galore from his host country. The young United States
desperately needed French aid, financial and military, if it was
going to gain its independence. Rather than appeal to France’s
self-interest, Franklin aimed higher. France should help the
Amercian rebels because it was the right thing to do. The Amercian
cause was humanity’s cause. Spoiler alert: Franklin’s appeal
worked. After some initial reservations, the French fully backed
the American cause, and helped secure its independence.
The practical implications of the Ben Franklin Effect are profound
and far reaching. Those looking to make new friends would be wise
to leverage the phenomenon. It works when two people know each
other, and even among strangers, suggesting it “could be a viable
strategy not only for maintaining or strengthening a current
relationship but also for initiating a new relationship,” said Yu
Niya, a professor at Japan’s Hosei University and author of a study
on the Ben Franklin Effect.
In the business world, companies eager to attract loyal customers
would be wise to ask something of them: helping design a new
product for instance. That is exactly what Lay’s Potato Chips did
with their 2012 “Do Us a Flavor” campaign. Consumers were asked to
suggest a new flavor. The company received nearly 4 million
submissions. The winner: Cheesy Garlic Bread. Lay’s, in return, saw
a spike in sales after the campaign ran. Another word for the Ben
Franklin Effect is engagement.
Perhaps the most fertile arena for deploying the Ben Franklin
Effect is politics. Leaders from opposing parties could reach
across the aisle not by dispensing favors but by requesting them.
As behavior scientist Lauren Braithwaite writes in The Decision
Lab, “At its core, the Benjamin Franklin effect transforms
adversaries into allies.” And it does so, remarkably, inexplicably,
one favor at a time.
