R for Reciprocity
Across all human societies, we’re all trained from childhood to reciprocate the favours we receive from others. No one wants to be labelled as someone who doesn’t pay a favour back. We don’t like to be around these people very much and we subconsciously do everything we can, not to be considered ingrates, moochers, takers or cheapskates.
It taps into our fear of being excluded. You probably won’t stick around the stingy friend much, and nor would anyone else. The need to reciprocate is a socially defined behaviour which helps us maintain a sense of fairness without having to make it so obvious that it becomes obnoxious.
Reciprocity is so strong that we often say “yes” to a request after somebody has helped us, just to not feel the sense of guilt that comes from refusing to help. Consequently, we’ll go to great lengths to reciprocate a benefactor.
Case Study 1
You must’ve seen the hotel cards encouraging you to reuse your towels to save the environment. While you might do it, we don’t know how many others actually reuse their towels based on the messaging. Here’s a case study on how one particular hotel used the principle of reciprocity to increase this number.
This is the story of Cialdini and his colleagues. They found that the basic environmental-protection message, urging us to save some no-name penguin, didn’t help the cause.
“HELP SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT. You can show your respect for nature and help save the environment by reusing your towels during your stay”,
Neither did the message with co-operation push people to reciprocate.
“PARTNER WITH US TO HELP SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT. In exchange for your participation in this program, we at the hotel will donate a percentage of the energy savings to a nonprofit environmental protection organisation.”
The most effective way to induce the desired response was to give the donation first and then ask a guest to cooperate in this effort.
The message with reciprocation appeal read like this:
“WE’RE DOING OUR PART FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. CAN WE COUNT ON YOU? Because we are committed to preserving the environment, we have made a financial contribution to a nonprofit environmental protection organisation on behalf of the hotel and its guests. If you would like to help us in recovering the expense, while conserving natural resources, please reuse your towels during your stay”.
It reported almost a 45.2% success rate, significantly greater than the cooperation condition. Why? Because the hotel donated money first on behalf of its guests and only then asked them to join in on it. You didn’t need to, except you felt sort of obliged to. If you didn’t recycle (help them claim the money back), well, you would probably feel a little bad.
