THINKER'S ALMANAC - July 13

Subject:  Ben Franklin Effect - Franklin’s Book Deal 

Event: The $100 bill becomes the largest denomination of U.S. currency, 1969

If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher’s stone.  - Benjamin Franklin

In addition to the sage financial advice above, Benjamin Franklin also famously said, “A penny saved is a penny earned.”  It seems appropriate, therefore, that we celebrate him today, for it was on this day in 1969 that the $100 bill, featuring Franklin’s portrait, became the largest denomination of U.S. Currency.  Also, on this day the $500, $1000, 5,000 and $10,000 bills were retired.

                                                      Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

In addition to financial advice, we might also look to Franklin for relationship advice, for psychologists today look to him as the father of an important psychological phenomenon called the Ben Franklin effect.

In his autobiography published in 1791, Franklin talks about an unnamed nemesis who he desired to turn from hater to friend.  A conventional approach would be to attempt to change the man’s attitude by doing him a favor.  Franklin approached it differently, however.  His unconventional, but successful strategy, was to ask his enemy to do HIM a favor.

Franklin wrote to the man asking to borrow a book from his personal library, a specific rare title that Franklin had no access to.  Flattered by the request, Franklin’s rival responded, sending the book.  A few days later, when Franklin saw his enemy in public, the man approached him and the two talked cordially.  Franklin had done it:  he had transformed his one-time enemy into a lifelong friend.

The psychology behind the Franklin effect comes down to self-esteem - the desire each of us has to see ourselves as reasonable, consistent people.  In the case of Franklin’s enemy, lending a book to a person he didn’t like was perceived as an action inconsistent with a reasonable person.  This cognitive dissonance was easily overcome by changing his attitude toward Franklin. No longer an enemy, Franklin’s nemesis now viewed Franklin as “a fellow book lover, who appreciated the rare holdings of my exclusive library.”

Putting the Ben Franklin Effect to the test in the laboratory more than 175 years later, Jim Jeckler and David Landy conducted an experiment in 1969.

The study began by recruiting an actor to pose as a scientist.  Participants were told that they would be given psychological tests, and based on their performance they would be awarded money.  In the process of the tests, the actor, posing as a researcher, behaved rudely and was intentionally obnoxious, in an effort to make the subjects in the experiment dislike him.  All subject were allowed to succeed at the tests and all were awarded the same amount of money for their efforts.  

After the test, the subjects were asked to walk to another room where a secretary waited with a questionnaire.  For one-third of the subjects, the actor stopped them just before leaving the room to ask a favor:  his request was that they return the money they earned because funding for the experiment was running low.   All the subjects fulfilled his request for a favor, giving the money back.  A second-third of the subjects were asked by the secretary to return the money as they filled out the questionnaire.  As with the first third, all agreed.  The final third of the subjects simply filled out the questionnaire and were allowed to leave with all of their money.

The key question asked on the questionnaire was to rate the likability of the researcher/actor on a scale of 1 to 12.  Those who were allowed to keep their money gave a rating on average of 5.8.  Those who gave their money to the secretary rated him on average 4.4.  Finally, those who gave their money back to the researcher as a favor rated him on average 7.2.  Thus, 178 years after Franklin published his relationship hack, it was confirmed by psychologists.

Long before the term “psychology” was coined, Benjamin Franklin was a keen student of both his own mind and the mind of others.  In the following anecdote from his Autobiography,  he recounted how he persuaded himself to change his mind:

I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalmed off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion I considered, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanced some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs. Then thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." So I dined upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do. (3)

Challenge:  “Ben” There, Done That

Franklin’s fish anecdote relates a psychological concept called cognitive dissonance.  What is cognitive dissonance?  How is it revealed in Franklin’s anecdote?

Sources:  

1-Scherzer, Lisa. “What You Might Not Know About the $100 Bill.” Yahoo Finance 8 Oct. 2013.

2-McRaney, David.  You Are Now Less Dumb. New York:  Gotham Books, 2013: 57-70.

3. Franklin, Benjamin.  The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin  (1791).