The Ben Franklin Effect (here on Wikipedia and on Quartz) is an interesting psychological effect: “a person who has already performed a favor for another is more likely to do another favor for the other than if they had received a favor from that person“. And we might use it more often.
As explained in Wikipedia, this effect can be used in commercial relations as well as in mentor-mentee situations. It can be triggered quite easily as in the famous personal example given by Franklin.
What is appalling of course is the reverse effect. “You tend to like the people to whom you are kind and dislike the people to whom you are rude“. The reverse effect might explain vendettas and other inadequate behaviors.
I am particularly interested about the experiment on the reverse effect which was performed in an educational context. “[the students] who received the insults [from the teachers] were rated as less attractive [by the teachers] than the ones who got encouragement”. This shows that not being nice or supportive to students will have a negative impact on the student but also on the teacher, creating a negative spiral.
All in all, we should probably be more aware of the Ben Franklin effect and maybe use it more proactively in the way we develop relationships.
