Article Contents

Why Attachments Have to Do with Investments

How does investment play a role in the human attachment?

Full disclosure: By investment, I do not mean specifically just money.

Investment can be attention, effort, the value placed on a certain project, relationship, or even person.

Franklin effect

Benjamin Franklin had a really impressive yet simple idea to deal with people. He once asked his rival candidate if he had a book in his collection.

Franklin insisted on lending him that book if the opponent had it in his collection. The opponent found this unusual surely and understandably.

But yet he gave Franklin the book he asked for anyway.

What did Franklin really want?

A relationship between two rivals is usually and understandably full of hostility.

One or both should feel the need of performing contempt toward each other whenever they can.

This was the ideal and classic scenario of the time where kings used to wage wars to demand kingdom and their territory.

But in this civilized current society, the new normal is for both opposing parties to sit in the same room and negotiate their way into a peaceful conclusion.

But our primitive brain inherited from our ancestors had us hardwired to feel the need of performing ‘contempt’ and ‘confrontation’ toward each other whenever we can.

I like to think about what Franklin did had a threefold purpose.

A) When you ask a person to do you a favour, you actually allow their subconscious mind to send them a message “I am already and anyway superior to him.

Otherwise, what would he need my help for?” The textbook definition of contempt is when someone tries to prove that they are more powerful or superior to the other person.

So he doesn’t feel the need to contempt out of his primitive and natural urge (now that you have pleased his ego by another medium.)

B) They think they have invested in you. So whatever you accomplish later doesn’t really feel as much a “slap in the face” as it would before.

Because he thinks what you have managed to accomplish has somewhat been possible because he has helped you get there.

Maybe it was some idea from the book he gave you that allowed you to perform better and thrive, or it could be anything.

Subconsciously, he seeks credit for your accomplishment and doesn’t feel as much hostile toward you as before.

C) Avoidance of proper communication of feelings can breed an obsessive need to confront.

By asking the other person for help, you get to explain your predicament to the other person. And as a result, he would feel empathy for you.

I know. It’s hard to explain. It’s all in the subconscious which is far beyond the reach of your conscious.

When subconscious kicks in, we would find ourselves doing things that our conscious would ideally not approve of.

It is a celebrated culture in the corporate world for one to ask for a visiting card from another competitor as a way of building rapport, that too as business rivals.

It is also not uncommon for a lawyer to ask for a visiting card from the opposing lawyer.

The law of consistency

One day there was a woman standing and waiting for a bus at a bus stop. It was a crowd there. She was waiting, minding her own business.

Suddenly she sees a guy walking toward the bus stop from a distance. Something was different about the man. He was smiling, looking at her.

Although he was a total stranger, the woman couldn’t resist smiling back. Can we blame her? Smile is contagious, after all.

The man comes toward her, walking. And he greets the woman good morning.

The woman greeted him back. Social rule, after all.

Then the man says to her, “You are a very nice lady! Actually, I needed a favour and of all the people in this crowd, I think you are the only person who can and will help me. I know that.”

The lady, all flattered, said with a smile, “Sure! what can I help you with?”

“I am a contestant for a contest. It is about a social experiment.

There are cameras surrounding this bus stop.

And I was told that if I can get five or so stranger women to kiss me, I will win a prize of 1,000 dollars!”

It was a weird request and the woman was understandably uncomfortable with the request. But she thought to herself, ” Oh what the hell! This is just a kiss.

The man will leave if I just give him a kiss on the cheek.”

Thinking this, for whatever reason, the woman agreed to kiss him.

And she did kiss him, on the cheek!

Then the man said with a content look and grin on his face, “Thank you so much.

You are a really good kisser. Although, about the kiss, it was a prank. Haha.

I actually did need a favour from you but I just wanted to see for fun if you would go for this one.

Actually,

I am a salesman for a water purifier company.

I sell water filters.

I just need to issue 30 names of people who would buy the filter in this form. Mam, I am asking you. Would you buy a filter from our company? We make the best filters!”

The lady felt uncomfortable, again. But then again, for whatever reason, she agreed to sign her name along with her address and phone number in the form.

What was her reason?

This is the law of consistency at work. We, humans, tend to stick to a course of action. The first action can be performed for any random motive or reason.

But after that, we feel a natural urge to stick with whatever we did in the first place. The idea is, we do it to avoid conflict and inconsistency.

The human mind hates conflict. It cannot take two different sets of ideas at the same time. We naturally want to stick to our decisions.

The decision of sticking to the course is often not made with careful logic and thinking. We just trust our previous selves to have made a fair decision.

If we didn’t trust our previous judgment, we would be having what psychologists call Cognitive Dissonance

People commit a certain set of actions and they stick to it.

It is the same explanation of why we tend to stay in bad relationships, bad investments, bad institutions, any previously-made bad decisions. Period.

It is because we want to trust our very first judgment.

It is just considered to be bias or strong influence in our decision-making. But there is no absolute when it comes to the human mind. A human can deviate from any supposed thing he or she was known to do.

This is how previously made investments can create a bias in our mind that can cause us to place attachment toward any given thing or person.

Endowment effect

How many times have you turned down the offer of an unreasonably large amount of money over something as general as a book? Your favourite book.

There was an experiment conducted that later on turned out to be the best demonstration of Endowment Effect at work.

In a classroom, 50% of the students were given a mug apiece to sell to the other students or take home.

But when the seller students tried to sell the mug, they would not price their mug below $5.25, and the average buyer students are not willing to pay more than $2.25 for this simple mug.

The mugs were all the same. But why would one group estimate the value of this mug for 5 bucks and another group would value the same mug for 2 bucks?

It is because the seller group of students has felt the ownership for their mugs and this feeling of “owning the mug” is causing them to subconsciously place more value on the mug than what the original value really is.

We place unreasonably more value on the things that we once used to own.

The idea that it (any material object) belongs to us does something to our reasoning and logic that enables us to evaluate that thing way more than the supposed current market price.

This is not specific to just material objects.

We also knowingly or unknowingly place more value on the people we once considered to be one of our own. After the dissolution or breakup of any relationship, we feel pain more or less due to the Endowment Effect.

The social rule of reciprocity

Our ancestors, the cavemen were better off alone, without allies. They used to hunt for the day and eat a mouthful of meat. But there was a problem.

They used to have plenty of leftovers as they ate alone and shared with no one else. So they started giving away the leftover to those who couldn’t find any hint for the day.

Doing this, he made allies. In later days, when he himself couldn’t find any hunt or food, he was offered some of the food from the other cavemen who managed to hunt for the day.

This story is thought to be the premise of the current social rule of reciprocity. This is the instinct that made the cavemen reconsider their ‘lone-wolf lifestyle.’

Anthropologically speaking, we are hardwired to feel attached to those who have helped us in need. Also, we knowingly or unknowingly expect somewhat a pay-off from what we gave away to the other person. This is more than just a social rule.

This is an attachment we feel toward one another due to gratefulness or emotional investment.

Extra little tip

Body language of engagement

Shoulder pointed toward you means he has engaged his attention toward you.

Just after having approached a stranger, if you see his shoulder pointed toward you, it means you have his attention.

Placing attention to someone is also about placing an investment. This is what I prefer to call Emotional and Social Investment.

Now you have the Franklin effect, The law of consistency, Endowment effect, The social rule of reciprocity in your quiver.

The quickest way to have someone to engage with you is to ask him for a favour. If you are at a party, all bored with no one to talk with, ask someone, anyone for a favour.

Maybe ask to pass you the jar, or ask a general question that any self-respecting adult would know and then pretend that you have been struggling with this.