Explanation of the Benjamin Franklin Effect

If anything, it's giving and not receiving that makes us value a friend more. It was the American statesman and inventor Ben Franklin who first observed the paradox, now called the Ben Franklin Effect: "He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged." In a nutshell, while material favors don't even come close to the emotional talents of our friends, we still want to validate our personal judgment by investing special qualities in those we select to help.

In one classic study, participants won "contest money" from a researcher. Later the researcher approached some of them and explained he'd actually used his own money and had little left; could he have the money back? Most agreed. Later, the researchers found, those asked to do the favor rated the researcher more favorably than those not approached. Psychologists concur that the phenomenon stems from a desire to reconcile feeling and action, and to view our instincts and investments as correct: "Why am I going out of my way to help this guy? Well, he must be pretty nice." The fondness we feel toward our yoga class buddy will continue to grow if one day she asks for a ride home and we go out of our way to give it to her.

Taken from: psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-4195.html&fromMod=popular_relationships

Today's tutorial

Hello! Well, I thought I'd just summarise some of the things that were discussed in today's tut. We were asked to think about what we would want for society if we were granted three wishes to change it. We were also asked to figure out our own solutions to these problems, so much fo the wishes! Lol, I thought this was a really good exercise though as it was very realistic in how we should solve the problem that are around us both on a small and large scale. My personal ideas were:

1. That we need to restructure what we as a society value. There's so much negativity being projected onto us by the media in terms of the way se should think and act. We're constantly being told what we could be and what we're not rather than what we are. I believe that if there was even just a little bit more positive advertising and if the media focused it's attention on constructive issues rather than destructive ones, society would function much better, both locally and globally. At the moment it seems that all we collectively care about is looking good, being rich and having every material possession we possibly can! So, basically, if we focused more on what we do have rather than what we don't have, people, generally would be much happier...

My solution to this problem is to instill confidence in others by setting an example. I think when people feel secure in who they are they want to give that feeling to others but you can only tell them so much. I've learned throughout my life that actions speak louder than words. As Ghandi said "be the change you want to see in the world" or something along those lines:-)

2. My second idea is that we should stop waiting around for others to lead us and take some friggin' initiative. This personally, really gets me annoyed! I hate laziness and it's really not that hard to just do it (it being anything and everything). I do however, think showing initiative and control in your life is linked to confidence, so this probably has to come first.

I guess my solution to this problem is again to set an example, but to just generally be nice to others. Random acts of kindness can be quite thrilling for both the kindness giver and the kindness receiver. So yeah, just do it! - hope Nike doesn't sue me.

3. My third one is just to treat others with respect. I reckon if we stopped caring about differences and just woke up to the fact that we're all living, breathing beings, everything would be a lot better. This isn't just respect to people, by the way, I mean, showing respect to every living thing. Humans think that because they're of greater intelligence that they're for some reason "better". But, do you think the earth really values us an higher than say, a caterpillar or a tree or perhaps even a speck of dust. Sorry, but no, lol. In fact, I think that our natural environment is one of the biggest things we need to fix because without it, how do we survive then? The harsh realisty is that we don't, and no nose job, flash car or Macca's drive-thru is gunna change that.

My solution to this, as above. But I can't force anyone to do anything.

Concept Map for Blog 2