Hyouka - Volume 03 - The Kudryavka Sequence - Welcome to KANYA FESTA! (1)

She then lifted her middle finger. Before long, she withdrew both fingers and
placed her hand back on her hip.
"For requests where you're to repay the favour, it means the person you're
asking does not trust you."
"Eh?"
Maybe it had something to do with her calm way of speaking, but Irisu-san's
serene voice seemed to have blocked out the noise generated by the Cultural
Festival around us.
"For situations where you're dealing with strangers which you would not deal
with again after you receive the favour, in nine out of ten cases, they would
consider your request a rip-off. Even if they don't, they would try to minimize
the effort they would put into handling your request. So in cases where you're
expected to repay the favour, you mustn't just think about what you would
expect them to do, but also take into consideration the time they have and the
effort they're willing to make. You must also take into consideration that they
may not be able to do what you request of them. If you're unwilling to do
that, then they too will not be willing to take such a risk for your request.
"While you could use reverse psychology to make them think they're ripping
you off instead, that would be too difficult for you. So for the moment being,
you're more suited to the second type, where trust would be needed.
"In such a situation, you would need to provide them with mental satisfaction
in order to carry out your request. It is easy to cut corners when only a
physical reward is available, but not so for a mental reward. The best way to
achieve that is to make them feel they're charismatic or popular, but you will
find you would not have much opportunity to use those. The next would be
faith and love, but these would require a lot of time to prepare beforehand.
By the way, I myself have never relied on these two.
"If possible, you should take advantage of their sense of justice or duty, their
professional spirit or their self-esteem, but its difficulty is above intermediate.
Though once you get the hang of those, you should be able to apply them to
many situations.