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In two experiments, the existence and extent of altruistic reciprocity is explored in the context of a simple experimental game, "the sequential dictator." Findings show that altruistic reciprocity is frequent and robust, and the reciprocity norm does not erode if stakes are raised. Implications of the findings for social theory and further empirical research are discussed.
Keywords: reciprocity; fairness norms; altruism; dictator game; behavioral game theory
The topic of reciprocity has long played an important role in anthropology, ethnology, and sociological thinking, for instance, in the classic writings of Georg Simmel (1950), Bronislaw Malinowski (1926), Marcel Mauss (1950/1990), or Alvin Gouldner ( 1960). More than four decades ago, Gouldner clarified the concept and its dimensions and assumed the existence of a universal norm of reciprocity in a well-known article. Recently, new interest in the issue of reciprocity has grown in sociology and political science in the context of the vivid debate about "social capital." Although there is a long tradition in sociology of research on reciprocity, a systematic theory leading to empirically testable predictions is still lacking. In economics and game theory, on the other hand, reciprocity was incorporated into rigorous models and has given rise to a more coherent theoretical perspective. However, the standard economic approach has the weakness that it cannot account for altruistic reciprocity or compliance to reciprocity norms in unrepeated interactions. Yet field studies and experimental studies alike support the existence of a norm of reciprocity for a wide array of social activities and even among strangers. Recent developments in experimental game theory try to account for these observations contradicting the standard approach.
Building on models from "behavioral game theory" (Camerer 1997), I will explore some of the core hypotheses of reciprocity theory using experimental data. In the second section, I sketch some new developments in reciprocity theory. The third section describes the method and the data, and the fourth section reports on the empirical results. In the final section, I discuss implications of the results for reciprocity theory and further empirical research.
THEORIES OF RECIPROCITY
SOCIAL CAPITAL
Whereas Gouldner ( 1960,172) was concerned with the functionalist argument that reciprocity promotes the stability of a social system, social capital theory shifted the attention to the effects of reciprocity and trust...