Monday 9 August 2010

Reciprocity

Been reading a bit around the topic of reciprocity recently. This seems to be a pretty deep-rooted facet of human behaviour, in both its positive and negative forms. That's why marketing drones seek to use it against us. It's also a very good strategy to adopt in Prisoner's Dilemma (provided it's an ongoing relationship), as famously put forward by Robert Axelrod.

It does suggest, doesn't it, that the desire to reciprocate, including the indebtedness we feel towards people who have done us a favour, is there through a process of natural selection. Survival of the fittest - as in most suited to the environment - actually favours co-operation for mutual benefit. The evolutionary process presumably has led to the feelings we experience that lead to reciprocal behaviour.

Two other things worth noting. Firstly, and most obviously, reciprocation doesn't just mean returning the favour, it also means responding to provocation. Hence the finding that people are willing to incur costs in order to punish someone who defects. This is an eye for an eye, not turn the other cheek.

Secondly, if we apply this approach to life in general then arguably selfish people - those who always defect - will never have their approach disproved. If they always defect they will never experience the worst possible outcome (I co-operate, you defect). They may end up in a lot of situations where both parties lose out, but they won't end up feeling like a sucker. The opposite is true for co-operative players. Sometimes they will get turned over by an unscrupulous partner. Making a bit of a leap, co-operative types are going to experience worse individual disappointments, even if they may do better in the long run.

3 comments:

CharlieMcMenamin said...

To suggest that reciprocity is evolutionarily determined - or at least selected for - is complex and tricky ground. There are shelves of arguments about this even in the popular science section of bookshops, never mind what might be available to specialists.

As I dimly understand it, (most/many)biologists do believe there are grounds for believing in a genetic basis for altruism, but this is not quite the same as reciprocity.

Nor is the Prisoners Dilemma the only, or even perhaps the most important, Games Theory exemplar in relation to evolutionary theory; John Maynard Smith, who is seen as a pioneer of this sort of thing, is best known for unpicking the various evolutionary options involved in playing Chicken.*

But Games Theory need have no immediate connection to biology.

*Or so I'm asserting until someone who knows what they're talking about comes along to correct me...

Nick Drew said...

but remember St Paul's view on turning the other cheek etc ...

For to do so is to heap burning coals on his head

Tom Powdrill said...

Yeah, I admit I'm well out of my depth here...