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.
