The Concept Of Reciprocity

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Introduction Human beings are motivated first and foremost by self-interest (Hobbies) in ordinary language and it refers to ‘reciprocal reasoning’ which has been used to explain empirically observed individual behaviour in many contexts and in particularly helping in the workplace (Frey 1993), public good provision (Hollander 1990) and gift exchange (Kranton 1996) as an important mechanism for producing collective goods (Anthony 2005). This making ‘Reciprocity’ the central concept in anthropology, where sociologists define it as an inner fact and essence of a human being in the society acting as glue that holds individuals together (Gouldner 1960; Kolm 1994; Komter 1996). This claims reciprocity as “the vital principle of society” (Hobhouse …show more content…

(2002) reciprocity has been defined as –“an act of voluntary repaying a trusting move at a later point in time, although defaulting on such repayment is in the short-term self-interest of the reciprocator”. Theoretical perspectives of ‘Reciprocity’ as a social capital dimension Reciprocity is a core part of building trustful relationships (Weber and Carter 1992) and reputations in a society (Lyon 2000) and a customary drift in economic and social domains (Neo et al. 2013). Although trust and reciprocity are intertwined (Song 2008) but unlike trust, reciprocity has received relatively less attention in the literature in the past (Song 2009). But more recently it has been examined both theoretically and empirically as a separate construct, yet closely linked to trust (Brandt and Sola 2001; Falk and Fischbacher 2006, Malhotra 2004 and Pillutla et al. 2003). In actuality, although trust and reciprocity behavior are defined to present together, however reported not with a same level/intensity (Chaudhuri et al. 2004). Since it does not come in immediate and formally accounted exchange of legal or business contract but a combination of short term …show more content…

Thus, reciprocity interlocks the status duties which people owe one another (Malinowski 1932), leading to actions to be kind in kind manner, and to actions perceived to be hostile in hostile manner (Rabin 1993; Segal and Sobel 2004; Dufwenberg and Kirchsteiger 2004; Falk and Fischbacher 2005). Basically the type of behaviour depends on the type of benefactor- either there are chances for an individual to behave kindly towards a spiteful person and hostilely towards an altruistic person (Levine 1998), or can connote making cooperative choices who acted cooperatively and making competitive choices towards an opponent who acted competitively (Beggan and Allison 2012). All these choices show varied two-way transfers in between gift and exchange in elementary form, but having a steady relationship (Kolm 1994). These variations expressed derive many types’ of reciprocities modelled using conventional game theory (Ahmed 2011). They are; 1) ‘Conditional reciprocity’ being the most prominent approach for evolution of cooperation (Smith 2010) and its defining feature is that the individual cooperates if other participants to do the same, otherwise it withholds cooperation; 2) ‘Positive reciprocity’ is a motivation to repay generous or helpful actions

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