How to Ask For Help

Most of us are far more comfortable giving help than asking for it. Asking feels like exposing weakness, like admitting we couldn’t manage on our own. That instinct is almost entirely backwards, and understanding why can change how you build relationships for the rest of your life.

The Ben Franklin Effect

Benjamin Franklin had a rival in the Pennsylvania legislature who disliked him intensely. Rather than trying to win the man over with favours, Franklin did something counterintuitive: he asked to borrow a rare book from the man’s library. The rival, flattered by the request, lent it to him. Franklin returned it with a note of thanks, and from then on, according to Franklin’s own account, the man’s coldness toward him thawed considerably, and the two became lasting acquaintances.

This pattern, now known as the Ben Franklin Effect, has since been studied more formally: doing someone a favour tends to increase our liking for the person we helped, not just the other way around. The likely explanation is a form of self-perception, we look at our own behaviour (I helped this person) and infer a reason for it (I must like them), even when the original reason was simply that they asked.

The practical implication is genuinely surprising. Asking someone for a small favour, rather than only ever doing favours for them, can be a legitimate way to build a relationship, not undermine one.

Why We’re So Reluctant

Despite this, most of us underestimate how willing others are to help. Research on help-seeking has found that people consistently underestimate the likelihood that a stranger will agree to a reasonable request, and underestimate how much a friend will resent being asked. We assume asking is a burden. Most of the time, for most people, it isn’t. Being asked for help, and being able to give it, is one of the more reliably positive experiences people report having.

Givers, Takers, and Where They End Up

The organisational psychologist Adam Grant’s research on givers, takers, and matchers found something worth sitting with: givers, people who habitually help others without expecting anything in direct return, are disproportionately represented at both ends of the success spectrum. Some givers burn out, get taken advantage of, and end up at the bottom. But givers are also disproportionately represented at the very top, precisely because the goodwill, trust, and networks they build over time compound in ways that self-interested strategies don’t. The difference between the givers who thrive and the ones who don’t usually comes down to whether they also know how to receive, and how to set limits, not to how much they give.

That matters for asking, too. A relationship where help only ever flows in one direction, you giving, they receiving, tends to feel unbalanced over time, for both people. Letting others help you isn’t just good for you, it gives them the chance to be a giver in return, and closes the loop that keeps a relationship healthy.

How to Actually Ask

Be specific. “Can you help me move house on Saturday between 10 and 2” gets a far better response than “I don’t suppose you’re free sometime to help me with something.” Vague requests are hard to say yes to, because the person doesn’t know what they’re actually committing to.

Ask directly, in person or by name, rather than a general appeal to a group. Diffusion of responsibility is real, “can someone help me with this” to a group often gets less response than the same request made directly to one person, because everyone assumes someone else will step in.

And don’t over-apologise for asking. A drawn-out apology for the request itself tends to make the person more uncomfortable, not less, and subtly signals that you think the request is a bigger burden than it usually is.

Further Reading

• Grant, A. (2013). Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success. Viking.
• Jecker, J., & Landy, D. (1969). Liking a person as a function of doing him a favour. Human Relations, 22(4), 371-378.
• Flynn, F. J., & Lake, V. K. B. (2008). If you need help, just ask: Underestimating compliance with direct requests for help. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(1), 128-143.
• Bohns, V. K. (2016). (Mis)understanding our influence over others: A review of the underestimation-of-compliance effect. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25(2), 119-123.
• Rimé, B. (2009). Emotion elicits the social sharing of emotion: Theory and empirical review. Emotion Review, 1(1), 60-85.