It’s safe to say I was relieved to
discover I am not the only one who experiences a large weight on my shoulders
once someone has done something nice for me. Whether this be buying me a gift,
an invitation or doing me a favour, I am greeted with a heavy sense of
obligation to return said ‘thing’ to the individual who gave it to me.
Cialdini’s (2007) chapter on reciprocation allowed me to recognise there is a
universal response through the rule for reciprocation. This simply states that
we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us.
The more you think about this, the
more you realise its strength; the boxes of chocolates and lifts into town you
have been giving your peers somehow make more sense. As a Psychology student, why
I have committed so much time to being another’s participant, despite the
ever-growing list of deadlines, has now become clear. It is a repayment of the
time they have given me by being my participant.
To give a more recent example, a
friend of mine recently returned from Disneyland, somewhere, as a beloved
Disney fan, I would love to go. She returned from her trip with a gift for me;
a beautiful autograph book, filled with the signatures of my favourite
characters. It is safe to say this is one of the most thoughtful gifts I have
ever received and it is hugely appreciated. A week later, when my friend
returned home from work, awaiting her was a cactus I had purchased from a plant
stall. It wears a sombrero, has googly eyes, and sits proudly on her chest of
drawers. At the time, the simple thought that she would love this cactus and
therefore, I should buy it for her (looking back, I’m not sure a cactus would
have ever made her shopping list, but it’s the thought that counts). It is now
clear to me that the rule of reciprocation must have been at play; she had
bought me a present thus, I owed her one in return.
I have to say it was a form of
comfort that my inability to say no to doing a favour for people and my ever
growing habit of purchasing comical presents has a reason; and the answer to
gaining back some of my free time and money isn’t simply becoming a nastier
person.
Cialdni suggests the power to say
no comes from mentally restructuring the nice thing that has been done for us
to its bare basics. If somebody in a store gives you a free sample, recognise
it as a marketing technique and you will no longer feel the sense of obligation
to purchase the product. After reading this, I felt empowered. I would no
longer be submitting my free time and hard earnt money to the rue of
reciprocation; I was free.
As it turns out, I was naïve and
premature in my conclusions. A friend asked me for a lift for him and his
cousin to his brother’s wedding, and in return would pay me £10. In its
simplicity; this is a business transaction; he was essentially paying me for my
time and petrol, so in light of new found freedom I decided this was safe, and
agreed. Yesterday we piled into my car and I drove them to the wedding. All had
gone well until he handed me the money, £10 more than we had agreed. Well I
found this very nice and drove home with a smile on my face. Within half an
hour of dropping them off I had sent him a text and offered to pick him up from
the wedding when it finished. It wasn’t until I had pressed send and was
deciding what I would be spending my £20 on, with a cup of tea, that I realised I
had been trapped by the rule of reciprocation once more. What’s more, I had
been trapped despite my desperate attempts to keep it in my conscious awareness
and not to be one of its victims.
The rule of reciprocation exists
for a reason; as Cianldni identifies, if we were always to accept favours and
offer nothing in return it would not be long before this individual stopped
their offerings. Chances are we would also be disliked through not fitting in
with the social norms, norms that suggest we should ‘give and take’. It is clear my
desperate attempts to avoid the rule at all costs failed miserably, but some
level of awareness of its power will definitely be beneficial in the future,
with better practice at saying no!
References
Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Reciprocation in Influence: The
psychology of persuasion. New York: Collins.
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