Concept
Reciprocity
Reciprocity is the near-universal rule that we feel obliged to repay what another person has given us — whether or not we asked for it. It is what makes cooperation possible, and what makes the free sample work.
Every human society trains its members in reciprocity, because a web of favours, credit and trade can only exist if giving today is reliably returned tomorrow. The rule is so deeply learned that it fires on gifts we never wanted: the sample in the supermarket, the address labels in the charity envelope, the flower pressed into your hand. The obligation is triggered by receiving, not by wanting, and the feeling of debt is not proportionate, so a small favour can extract a much larger one. A subtler form is reciprocal concession: ask for something large, retreat when refused to the smaller thing you wanted, and the other person feels they owe a concession in return. Cialdini's defence is not to refuse gifts, which costs every relationship, but to redefine them: a favour offered to obtain compliance is a sales tactic, and the rule says nothing about repaying tactics. The honest use runs the other way — give something real first, with no invoice, and let people decide whom to owe.
A real-life example
A translator in İzmir sends every prospective client a free one-page review of their existing English website, pointing out the three worst errors, whether or not they hire her. Most write back. Those who hire her stay for years, because the first thing they received from her was real help with nothing attached.
How to use it
- 1Give first, and give something that costs you real effort: an introduction, a review, an hour. Do not mention it again.
- 2When you receive an unrequested gift from someone who wants something, name it to yourself as a tactic; you owe nothing for tactics.
- 3In a negotiation, watch for the retreat from a large request to a smaller one, and judge the smaller one on its own merits.