Ben Franklin Effect
We come to like people more after doing them a favor.
The Ben Franklin effect is a psychological finding that a person who has performed a favor for someone is more likely to do another favor for that person than they would be if they had received a favor from that person. Franklin wrote of asking a rival to lend him a rare book; the rival became a friend. We justify our kind actions by convincing ourselves we must like the person — reducing cognitive dissonance between behavior and attitude.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Everyday life Asking for Help A person who is reluctant to approach a new colleague for help finds, after the colleague assists them, that they now genuinely like the colleague more — the act of helping created the liking, not the other way around.
Recognising a definition is not the same skill as spotting it.
Two scenarios from the app, with distractors drawn from the same family of biases — which is what makes them hard.
After helping a colleague fix a software bug, Yuki found she enjoyed collaborating with him on future projects much more.
After giving a rideshare driver a positive review, Nadia felt the driver was exceptionally polite.
Biases rarely arrive alone.
Understand more. Assume less.
188 biases, 18,869 scenarios, and a record of how you actually decide.
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