Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Robustness Of Reciprocity: Experimental Evidence That Each Form Of Reciprocity Is Robust To The Presence Of Other Forms Of Reciprocity, David Melamed, Brent Simpson, Jered Abernathy

Faculty Publications

Prosocial behavior is paradoxical because it often entails a cost to one’s own welfare to benefit others. Theoretical models suggest that prosociality is driven by several forms of reciprocity. Although we know a great deal about how each of these forms operates in isolation, they are rarely isolated in the real world. Rather, the topological features of human social networks are such that people are often confronted with multiple types of reciprocity simultaneously. Does our current understanding of human prosociality break down if we account for the fact that the various forms of reciprocity tend to co-occur in nature? Results …