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social
You feel an urge to act because you were asked.
Researchers found that simply being asked for a small favor increased a participant's future liking for that person.
Your mind struggles to reconcile the act of helping someone with the possibility that you might dislike them. To resolve this internal contradiction, your brain decides that you must actually like the person, which is why you helped them. The behavior changes the attitude, not the other way around.
You justify helping someone by deciding they are worth the effort.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Jecker and Landy, 1969, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- What the check found
- The study by Jecker and Landy (1969) is the classic source for the Benjamin Franklin effect. The claim is a reasonable summary of the experimental finding.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.