What The Golden Rule Gets Wrong About Human Psychology

Growing up we were taught to abide by the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But that's hard to maintain. People get in the way and always seem to let you down, right? A coworker is a jerk to you and you don't know why. You hold a door for someone at the coffee shop and then that person and 15 of their friends all stand in front of you in line. What if there were a simple hack to get your enemies to work for you; some sort of jedi mind-trick for assholes?

Well, lucky for you, that actually exists and Ben Franklin figured it out two centuries ago. He found that asking people he didn't get get along with to do simple favors for him subconsciously forced them into liking him. It's kind of an anti-golden rule that doesn't flow off the tongue at all: Have others do unto you what you want and then they'll continue to do good unto you...or something like that.

This week Jack O'Brien is joined by Cracked editors Jason Pargin (aka David Wong) and Alex Schmidt to discuss this "Ben Franklin effect" and why it explains some more troubling human behaviors like internet mob culture and why celebrities slowly turn into their own personas.

Throw on your headphones and click play above, go here to subscribe on iTunes, or download it here.