3 Tips to Persuade Someone to Reciprocate and Share With You

Reciprocity (give-and-take exchange) is essential for successful human interactions. Feeling motivated to return a favor (and feeling owed for a favor) drives social behavior, personal interaction, and interpersonal attraction too. In fact, as I discuss in Attraction Psychology (Nicholson, 2022), reciprocal social exchange is the heart of dating and romantic relationships. Beyond that, it is a motivational force in professional interactions as well.

Nevertheless, even though reciprocity is an important motivator, the give-and-take exchange can still get “stuck” at times. For example, even if you do a favor for someone, they may not feel grateful (or obligated) enough to reciprocate. At that point, the exchange can stop, and the professional or personal relationship ceases to develop as well.

Now, that doesn’t mean we need to hold ourselves back all the time—waiting for someone else to always make the first overture. But it does mean that we need to learn what motivates and persuades others to reciprocate. Specifically, what do people value about reciprocity and exchange? Also, when and why do they give back? Fortunately, research has the answers…

The Value of Reciprocity

An article by Molm, Schaefer, and Collett (2007) explored when, how, and why reciprocity is valuable for our social exchanges and relationships. Initially, the team surveyed existing research and summarized that reciprocity is valuable for two main reasons. On one hand, it has Instrumental Value, which is the actual utility and concrete benefits received from the exchange. On the other hand, reciprocity also has Symbolic Value, which is the information and emotions expressed that reduce uncertainty in the relationship moving forward. Put simply, reciprocity meets our practical needs in the moment (instrumental value), while also building goodwill and trust for successful future exchanges (symbolic value).

Molm, Schaefer, and Collett (2007) then designed an experiment to test how each of these value types impacted real reciprocity decisions. They developed a program in which two computerized “trading partners” differed in instrumental value (the amount of money they had to share) and symbolic value (the predictability and rate of their sharing). Participants were then asked to make a choice to trade with one partner or another on the computer, believing they were real human beings. These choices went on for hundreds of exchanges, to evaluate what motivated participants’ decisions to reciprocate and continue an exchange relationship—or switch up and end an interaction instead.

Analyzing the results, the researchers found that participants primarily chose to reciprocate and exchange with trading partners who were higher in instrumental value. Put simply, they picked the partner who had the most to give. This was especially true for early exchanges, even if that partner was less predictable (i.e., they reciprocated and gave back less reliably or frequently).

As time went on, however, participants began to pick reliable and predictable trading partners more often. They began to feel greater solidarity and positive regard for those partners who reciprocated regularly, as the symbolic value of those behaviors built up over time. Ultimately, they came to trust predictable trading partners the most, especially when they always gave back and returned favors.

Taken together, the results indicate that people are primarily motivated to reciprocate by the value of what they can gain from a partner (the partner’s overall instrumental value). Over time, however, they also start to consider whether that person will share with them (the partner’s symbolic value). Put simply, a partner with $100K is initially more appealing than one with $10K—until you find out that the $100K partner won’t share with you reliably, but the $10K one will.

Motivating Reciprocity in Others

Overall, we see that reciprocity is first motivated by the attraction and appeal of a partner’s instrumental value. As time moves on, that motivation is modified by a partner’s symbolic value and sharing behavior, which starts to build feelings of solidarity and regard. In the long run, if that partner remains predictable and cooperative, trust develops to drive future reciprocity as well. Given that, there are three ways to influence and motivate someone to reciprocate—in the short, medium, and long term.

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1. Be Rewarding in the Short Term: Piquing an exchange partner’s interest and motivating an initial exchange is all about the rewards and benefits you bring to the table. So, start off by being rewarding and providing something that is reinforcing to them. Nevertheless, begin by giving slowly and carefully as well. Otherwise, you might give them all your worth up front (or at least everything they want), and they won’t have any further motivation to trade with you. So, give them a rewarding taste, but use a bit of scarcity and hold back the best for later, too.
2. Build Solidarity and Regard in the Medium Term: After the initial exchange is started, make sure to keep up your end of the give-and-take. Be a reliable partner. Give and share, especially when your partner cooperates with you. This reliability builds feelings of solidarity, regard, and positive expectations about the exchange moving forward. If things feel stuck, you can also build a sense of unity by identifying common goals and win-win solutions with your exchange partner. This helps the exchange move beyond instrumental trading to symbolic relationship building.
3. Make Things Predictable in the Long Term: As you and your exchange partner reciprocate and cooperate more regularly, a sense of predictability will emerge. By keeping things predictable, you build trust—which can further develop dependability and even faith in one another. Predictable and repeated reciprocity can also create feelings of consistency, which motivates commitment too. Over time, this is how you transform a short-term instrumental and intermittent exchange into a long-term trusting and committed reciprocal relationship. Nevertheless, predictability can slide into being taken for granted as well, so be sure to shake things up from time to time and make them work for it occasionally, too!

© 2025 by Jeremy S. Nicholson, M.A., M.S.W., Ph.D. All rights reserved.