We tend to help others in one of two ways: either we do it for free and expect nothing in return, or expect the favour to be paid back in equal value. But sometimes, especially if you wait for too long, the other person might forget you’ve done a favour and get nothing in return. That’s explained by reciprocity decay.
Let’s see how it works and why favours simply… expire!
The study behind reciprocity decay
A study was published in 2018, by Judd Kessler, associate professor at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. The study was done on patients that visited the university hospital system between May 2013 and April 2015. In short, the patients received a request for donation, sometime after their visit. The study showed that if a donation was asked after a month, the chance for a positive response decreased by 30%. That study looked at 18000 requests for donations. The positive response rate, shortly after the visit was 1.5% and dropped to 0.4% as time was increasing.
This tends to confirm what previous research was indicating concerning reciprocity decay on personal transactions.
How reciprocity decay applies to our personal lives
The study mentioned above is straightforward. If you ask for a return favour after a month, there’s a 60%-70% chance you’ll get help. If you ask for it after two months, there’s a max 40% chance people will respond. After three months, it’s getting close to zero. Unless… the person you’ve helped has OCD (not kidding!). That’s a category that care about moral principles and being fair, more than the average human. But not even that will last forever.
This habit of returning favours has been with mankind since prehistoric times. Initially it was about sharing food and basic resources. Not returning the favour when having the occasion, or to say it blunt: acting like a parasite, would’ve led to exclusion from the group. In primitive times that was equal to a death sentence.
Nowadays, reciprocity is a social norm. Taking advantage of other people’s kindness on purpose, can still lead to exclusion from certain social groups, but the consequences aren’t that dramatic.
Reciprocity is used as a manipulation technique when you receive unsolicited “gifts” from companies, shortly followed by a request. That’s how sampling works!
It’s also used by criminal groups, which supposedly have “helped” you in some way and now you “owe” them. If you don’t respond to whatever request they will make (rarely matching the so-called “help”), that will be a good enough reason to punish you (the equivalent of excluding you from their protection).
When should you ask for a favour to be returned
Our thinking is affected by different types of biases. We may not perceive the value of a favour according to the effort that went in. Also, our recollection of the help received will fade over time. All this eases the feeling of being in debt to someone. We might also reframe the story by saying to ourselves we didn’t really ask for help, it was rather self-offered (while we actually did ask for help).
As I’ve said in the beginning, sometimes we do things just because we like someone. We don’t expect anything in return. We get satisfaction by helping someone in need or someone we like. In fact, it is said that 50% of all services performed in the world (including household activities like washing dishes, taking out the trash), are done for free. Free in the sense that we don’t expect any form of payback, not necessarily money.
We are all aware that we respond to certain requests or help certain people with the expectations that they will repay the favour. Based on the evidence above concerning reciprocity decay, ideally you should ask for a return favour on the spot, or the next day. We prefer the next day, just so it doesn’t seem we’ve done it only for a return favour. BUT if you do someone a favour, as an “investment” and don’t intend to request anything in return in the near future…. you’ve helped for free!
Therefore, it’s time to prescribe older than 3 months favours, because chances are you’ll never see them returned.
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