This sentence means a character had decided upon a certain action for a problem in their head. however other characters (the peers in this example) bestowed an act of kindness or "did something nice" for this other characters in hopes that he/she would change their mind. A good example would be if you upset your parent by acting up and they said no to a sleepover. you would do chores or act kindly towards them in order to try to get them to change their mind and say yes.
The question ask to choose among the following choices that best answer that could fit and support the statement in your question, and based on my further analysis about it, I came up with an answer of letter D. Substance. I hope you are satisfied with my answer and feel free to ask for more
