It goes without saying that many self-help books, perhaps almost all of them, fail to deliver what they promise. But there's a special subgroup that promises things you wouldn't want in the first place.

Take the recently published How To Date Paris Hilton, by a former stripper named Clive "Rock Solid" Webb, which is doomed from page one due to the author's failure to address the question of why, in the name of all that is holy, anyone would want to do that. (It turns out "Paris Hilton" is intended as a synonym for "beautiful women", though the book is useless anyway, since Mr Webb - or should that be Mr Solid? - is accustomed to taking his clothes off in public, and thus presumably doesn't suffer from shyness.)

There are countless such titles on how to make people like you, in the context of dating, friendship, networking and so on. Most feel slightly manipulative and soulless, but they're one of the most venerable strands of self-improvement, reaching back to the 18th century - and to a man who, had he used Clive Webb's publishers, would probably have been known as Benjamin "Kite In A Thunderstorm" Franklin.

Franklin is a curious bird: a witty writer, skilled diplomat and a genius who invented lightning conductors - and yet, one can't help imagining, slightly irritating. "He seems like the type of guy," writes the blogger Rita Koganzon, "who might have a lot of Facebook friends who, upon further questioning, would admit they accepted his friend request only because they didn't want to offend him." But he also put his finger on astrange truth about human attraction: people like you more if they've done a favour for you than if you've done a favour for them. Franklin recalls trying to win over a hostile member of the Pennsylvania legislature, not by kowtowing but by asking to borrow a "certain scarce and curious book" from his library. The man obliged, and friendship flourished. "He that has once done you a kindness," Franklin concludes, "will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged."

The Ben Franklin Effect, as psychologists call it, works because we hate cognitive dissonance: we can't stand a mismatch between our actions and thoughts. So if we find ourselves helping someone out, we'll unconsciously adjust our feelings for them. After all, we don't want to feel we're valuing someone who doesn't deserve it. In one key study, students won money in a contest; afterwards, some were asked to return it because it was the hard-up researcher's own cash. In a subsequent survey, that group liked the researcher significantly more than those who weren't asked for money.

The implications are striking. Don't suck up to your boss - make demands. Don't shower your friends (or children) with gifts - ask to borrow their stuff. And whatever Clive "Rock Solid" Webb says, don't sidle up to members of the opposite sex in bars and offer to buy them drinks; get them to buy you drinks instead.

oliver.burkeman@theguardian.com