Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the US, was known for his insights about human nature.
While he was serving in the Pennsylvania legislature, he was really disturbed by the animosity & hostility of a fellow legislator.
So, he decided to win the legislator over by asking a favor from him rather than doing the legislator a favor.
He wrote to this person asking if he could loan a rare book from his library to Franklin.
Franklin returned the book in about a week with a note, expressing his gratefulness.
When they next met in the House, Franklin was amazed by the civility with which this person spoke.
They soon became good friends and the friendship lasted a lifetime.
This is an excellent demonstration of using cognitive dissonance to create influence. Cognitive dissonance is a state of tension that occurs whenever a person holds two inconsistent thoughts. E.g., “Smoking kills” & “I smoke two packs a day”. This causes huge mental discomfort and a human can’t rest easy until he reduces the dissonance. So, he tries to quit smoking. If he fails, he cooks up theories like “smoking helps me relax and prevents me from gaining weight that leads to obesity, which is also a health risk.”
Similarly, “Person A is a jerk” & “I helped Person A” cause dissonance. So, when you do a good deed for someone, you start seeing him/her in a warmer light. Why would you, the intelligent person, do something nice for a jerk, after all?
