“He who has once done you good will be more willing to help you again than one whom you yourself have helped.” Benjamin Franklin Who among you has not at least once worried that one or another of your acquaintances does not look in your direction or avoids you? Do you worry when someone you know fences themselves off with a fence of inaccessibility and pride? And who can say that some of us don’t have enemies? If you think that you are adored by everyone and love everyone selflessly and no one expects anything in return, then there is no point in reading further. And if you want to look at these issues from the other side, get started! As you know, the best way to please a person is to do something useful for him. Every person enjoys living in comfortable, good-neighborly relations with colleagues, acquaintances, and neighbors. In psychology there is a term “Affiliation” - this is a person’s need to be in the company of other people. This need manifests itself in creating trusting, warm emotional relationships with other people. How to build these very friendly relationships: invite you for coffee, or to visit, or spend a weekend together? Yes, all this is real, these are the first steps towards establishing trusting relationships, they are based on the principles of mutual respect: I do good to someone, and he will repay me well in return. However, it turns out that you can achieve favor in a different way. And you won’t believe how! To make a person feel sympathy for you, give him the opportunity to do you a favor. People tend to treat well not only those who benefit them, but also those whom they themselves help. Doctor of Science, American psychologist Meg Jay wrote the book “Important Years. Why you shouldn’t put off life until later.” (I recommend reading: it’s about people aged 20-30 who can’t figure out what to do with their lives). I’ll quote a fragment from this book: “At the end of the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin was involved in politics in the state of Pennsylvania and tried to win the favor of one of your fellow legislators. This is how he describes this story in his autobiography: “I did not seek... to gain his favor by showing him any servile attentions; but after some time I tried another method. Having heard that there was a very rare and interesting book in his library, I sent him a note in which I expressed my desire to read this book and asked him to do me the courtesy of borrowing it for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I returned it about a week later with a note thanking him profusely for the service. The next time we met in the House, he spoke to me, which he had never done before, and moreover very kindly. Subsequently he invariably showed a readiness to render me service on all occasions, so that we soon became great friends, and our friendship continued until his death. Here is another example of the truth of the old saying that I have learned, which says: “He who has once done you good will be more willing to help you again than he whom you yourself have helped.” This quoted passage from the book refers to the same Benjamin Franklin who looks wisely at us from every $100 bill. I would also like to note that the future American president was born in Boston into a poor family with seventeen (!) children. And, having worked since the age of 10, he clearly knew first-hand about the world around him, about the intrigues that permeate the air, and how hard it is to survive in conditions of eternal struggle and competition. Does such a phenomenon as the “Franklin effect” even exist in psychology? Is the expression “Franklin effect” correct? With repeated research and psychological experiments, the answer of psychologists tended to be confirmed. For example, in 1969, the “Franklin effect” was proven using a rather harsh psychologicalan experiment in which a group of unsuspecting volunteers were asked to take a test and earn some money from it. During the testing process, the presenter (on purpose!) tried to be as rude as possible. He had to be so rude that by the end of the event the audience hated him with all their hearts. At the end of the experiment, he asked a third of the subjects to return the fee they had paid him, citing the unexpected request as a meager budget and the fact that he financed the experiment from personal funds. Nobody could refuse him. Another third of the audience was detained by the assistant presenter, who again asked people to donate money “for the good of science.” The remaining third safely left the scene with the money. The real purpose of the “performance” was to find out the attitude of the participants in the action towards the leading experimenter, for which they were asked to give him a “score” on a 12-point scale. As a result, part of the audience, which was forced to give money to the assistant, gave the presenter the lowest rating, about 4 and a half points. The lucky ones who walked away with a fee gave him 5.8 points. Those who did give their hard-earned money to the presenter personally rated him as much as 7.2 points, despite all his rudeness and the seemingly impossible request for help with such rude treatment. The Franklin effect certainly exists. One of the most likely explanations for the mechanisms of this phenomenon is considered to be cognitive dissonance - that is, psychological discomfort caused by a conflict of internal attitudes. When you do someone a favor, the brain begins to look for motives for action in order to smooth out the contradictions between thinking and action. If there are no motives, the brain tries to create them itself, simply making you feel sympathy for the person. It’s as if we tell ourselves: “I would never help him just like that, for no reason. I liked it, that’s why I’m doing it.” So, in other words, it shows that while attitudes do influence behavior, behavior can also influence attitudes. Knowing about the Franklin effect, we can explain the “incredible” result of the described experiment very simply: a person tends to justify his actions, incl. in front of yourself. If we do someone a favor, we begin to believe that we feel sympathy for that person. This sympathy leads to another service and so on. Numerous studies have established a direct connection between altruism and happiness, health and longevity - but only on the condition that the help we provide to another person does not become a burden to him. Most of us remember our first teachers and mentors and that how, at the very beginning of their life’s journey, they were helped by someone who had already been able to achieve certain successes in life. Helping others is one of the integral elements of maturity and the viability of a person as an individual. Therefore, when someone turns to us for help, it provides an opportunity to do a good deed and experience pleasure from it. But, again, provided that this is not a burden and does not go beyond the bounds of decency and possibilities. Unfortunately (or not?), people live in captivity of many different misconceptions and illusions. One such misconception is: “We do good to those we like and bad to those we hate.” Benjamin Franklin is an unsurpassed master of diplomacy and the art of compromise. The truth he offers us is different and looks like this: “We are disposed to love those to whom we have done good and to hate those to whom we have harmed.” We make the choice ourselves. It’s the way humans are designed that we feel indebted to the people who gave us a gift. So much so that sometimes they are ready to sacrifice real money or their invaluable time in order to thank even a complete stranger for completely insignificant signs of attention. And no one has canceled generosity, this virtuous and selfless feeling gives a person.