How can I win over my potential adversary?

Answer: Ask him or her to do you a favor and for you to then express your deep appreciation.


Benjamin Franklin explains the strategy beautifully  in his autobiography The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (click on link to read the whole book–it’s a great read by a very socially savvy guy):

My first promotion was my being chosen, in 1736, clerk of the General Assembly. The choice was made that year without opposition; but the year following, when I was again proposed, . . .a new member made a long speech against me, in order to favour some other candidate. I was, however, chosen, which was the more agreeable to me, as, besides the pay for the immediate service as clerk, the place gave me a better opportunity of keeping up an interest among the members, which secured to me the business of printing the votes, laws, paper money, and other occasional jobs for the public, that, on the whole, were very profitable.

I therefore did not like the opposition of this new member, who was a gentleman of fortune and education, with talents that were likely to give him, in time, great influence in the House, which, indeed, afterwards happened. I did not, however, aim at gaining his favor by paying any servile respect to him, but, after some time, took this other method. Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favor of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I returned it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favor.

When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death.

This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, “He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.” And it shows how much more profitable it is prudently to remove, than to resent, return, and continue inimical proceedings.

The effectiveness of this strategy makes perfect sense from a cognitive-dissonance point of view: Benjamin Franklin’s adversary might have thought:

“This Franklin guy is thanking me heartily for a favor I have just done him. If I’ve done him such a great favor, then I must like him? Otherwise, what am I doing him this favor for? I’m not a fool!”


Social psychology research supports Benjamin Franklin:

In their excellent book Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion, authors Noah Goldstein, Steve Martin and Robert Cialdini describe a study by Jon Jecker and David Landy:

In one study, participants won some money from the experimenter in a contest. Afterwards, one group of participants was approached by the experimenter, who asked them whether they’d be willing to give back the money because he was using his own funds and had little left. (Almost all agreed.)

Another group of participants were then anonymously surveyed about how much they liked the experimenter.

Jecker and Landy found that those who were asked to do the favor rated the experimenter more favorably than did those who were not asked to give back the money (p 73).

An interesting quirk:

Many people feel too proud or uncomfortable asking someone for a favor;  so asking their adversary for a favor would really bristle!  But look what their pride or discomfort could be cheating themselves out of!