Reciprocity Is Not Give and Take Asymmetric Reciprocity to Positive and Negative Acts

Unlike economic exchange, social exchange has no well-defined “value.” It is based on the norm of reciprocity, in which giving and taking are to be repaid in equivalent measure. Although giving and taking are colloquially assumed to be equivalent actions, we demonstrate that they produce different patterns of reciprocity. In five experiments utilizing a dictator game, people reciprocated in like measure to apparently prosocial acts of giving, but reciprocated more selfishly to apparently antisocial acts of taking, even when the objective outcomes of the acts of giving and taking were identical. Additional results demonstrate that acts of giving in social exchanges are perceived as more generous than objectively identical acts of taking, that taking tends to escalate, and that the asymmetry in reciprocity is not due to gaining versus losing resources. Reciprocity appears to operate on an exchange rate that assigns value to the meaning of events, in a fashion that encourages prosocial exchanges.

[1]  A. Tversky,et al.  Prospect theory: an analysis of decision under risk — Source link , 2007 .

[2]  V. Hamilton,et al.  Handbook of justice research in law , 2002 .

[3]  A. Goldberger,et al.  The Imperial Animal , 1973, The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.

[4]  C. Wedekind.  Give and Ye Shall Be Recognized , 1998, Science.

[5]  K. Vohs,et al.  Case Western Reserve University , 1990 .

[6]  Noah J. Goldstein,et al.  Social influence: compliance and conformity. , 2004, Annual review of psychology.

[7]  R. D. Alexander.  The biology of moral systems , 1989 .

[8]  W. Hamilton,et al.  The evolution of cooperation. , 1984, Science.

[9]  F. Heider.  The psychology of interpersonal relations , 1958 .

[10]  D. Kahneman,et al.  CHAPTER EIGHT. Fairness as a Constraint on Profit Seeking: Entitlements in the Market , 2004 .

[11]  S. Fiske,et al.  Social Psychology , 2019, Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences.

[12]  A. Gouldner.  THE NORM OF RECIPROCITY: A PRELIMINARY STATEMENT * , 1960 .

[13]  M. Nowak.  Five Rules for the Evolution of Cooperation , 2006, Science.

[14]  L. Ross,et al.  Naive realism in everyday life: Implications for social conflict and misunderstanding. , 1996 .

[15]  Kim,et al.  Social conflict: Escalation, stalemate, and settlement , 1986 .

[16]  Rita C. Manning,et al.  Social justice in a diverse society , 1997 .

[17]  D. Wolpert,et al.  Two Eyes for an Eye: The Neuroscience of Force Escalation , 2003, Science.

[18]  Timothy D. Wilson,et al.  Loss Aversion Is an Affective Forecasting Error , 2006, Psychological science.

[19]  J. Horowitz,et al.  Fairness in Simple Bargaining Experiments , 1994 .

[20]  M. Ridley.  The origins of virtue : human instincts and the evolution of cooperation , 1998 .

[21]  R. Cialdini.  Influence: Science and Practice , 1984 .

[22]  D. Schroeder,et al.  Justice Within Social Dilemmas , 2003, Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.