The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

by Jonathan Haidt

Reciprocity works just as well for bargaining. Cialdini was once asked by a boy scout to buy tickets to a movie he didn’t want to see. When Cialdini said no, the scout asked him to buy some less expensive chocolate bars instead. Cialdini found himself walking away with three chocolate bars that he didn’t want. The scout had made a concession, and Cialdini automatically reciprocated by making a concession of his own. But rather than getting mad, Cialdini got data. He conducted his own version of the encounter, asking college students walking on campus whether they would volunteer to chaperone a group of juvenile delinquents to the zoo for a day. Only 17 percent agreed. But in another condition of the study, students were first asked whether they would volunteer to work for two hours a week for two years with juvenile delinquents. All said no, but when the experimenter then asked about the day trip to the zoo, 50 percent said yes.26 Concession leads to concession. In financial bargaining, too, people who stake out an extreme first position and then move toward the middle end up doing better than those who state a more reasonable first position and then hold fast.27 And the extreme offer followed by concession doesn’t just get you a better price, it gets you a happier partner (or victim): She is more likely to honor the agreement because she feels that she had more influence on the outcome. The very process of give and take creates a feeling of partnership, even in the person...