In order to increase personal status and become a respected "big man," senior men often spent years accumulating pigs and other valuable, exotic items such as cassowaries large birds similar to emus and ostriches in order to give them away at elaborate ritual feasts.
As in the case of the potlatch, recipients of pigs and other valuable things were obliged to return gifts of greater value at some time in the future. Failure to do so would be unthinkable because of the loss of respect and status that would result. Perhaps the most well known of the New Guinea pig give-away traditions was among the Kawelka of the Central Highlands. As a result of trade with the outside world, the Kawelka pig give-away events had grown in scale by the 's to include motorbikes, trucks, and tens of thousands of Australian dollars.
At times, the total value of the goods given away reached hundreds of thousands of dollars. This was an extraordinarily large fortune for essentially subsistence base horticultural societies. It is important to keep in mind that most of this wealth actually circulated within the society.
As a result, there was very little net loss. However, a small number of the pigs were eaten and the cassowaries were usually killed for their feathers. So far, we have primarily examined the nature of economic exchanges within a single society. As the scale of societies gets larger, they increasingly become involved in commercial exchanges with other societies. During the last two centuries, international commerce resulted in an enormous redistribution of wealth to the industrialized nations located mostly in the northern hemisphere.
This process essentially began with Western European nations draining the surpluses from their colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The colonies provided raw materials at low prices for European factories, and the colonists bought the products of those factories at elevated prices. The net effect of this institutionalized negative reciprocity has been that the majority of the former European colonies are still underdeveloped poor nations.
As the old colonial empires collapsed over the last half century, multinational corporations and large banks continued the process of draining the surpluses from underdeveloped regions and funneling them mainly into Western Europe, North America, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and a few oil rich nations especially around the Persian Gulf. China and India are in the process of joining this club of major international creditors.
It is not likely that this progressive redistribution of global wealth to a few rich nations can go on forever without serious consequences for the global economy. Trade imbalances can cripple economies in debtor nations when their debts become larger than they can repay.
It is sobering to realize that the largest national debt in the world is owed by the United States. In fact, the U. It is unlikely that the U. The U. Consequently, an economic crisis in the U. Commerce among small-scale societies in the past usually involved more institutionalized balanced reciprocity than is found in the international trade system today. In addition, commerce generally involved considerably more social gain.
An example of such inter-societal commerce among small-scale societies was the Kula Ring of the Southwest Pacific Ocean. This was an extensive network of inter-island trade to the east and northeast of New Guinea. At that time, it still operated largely in its purely indigenous form. The Kula Ring was a closed trading system in which only established senior male trading partners from each island could participate.
The trade was carried out with large outrigger sailing canoes. Long, dangerous sea voyages were undertaken for the purpose of this trade. On the surface, it appeared to be primarily an exchange of gift items and ceremonial feasting organized to reinforce bonds between senior trading partners.
The trade network was essentially circular. Marketers utilize a broad range of strategies to convince consumers to make purchases. Some are straightforward such as sales, coupons, and special promotions. Others are far more subtle and make use of principles of human psychology of which many people are not even aware.
More examples of reciprocity include:. Reciprocity has a few obvious benefits. For one thing, taking care of others helps the survival of the species.
By reciprocating, we ensure that other people receive help when they need it and that we receive assistance when we need it.
Reciprocity also allows people to get things done that they would not be able to do on their own. By working together or exchanging services, people are able to accomplish more than they would individually. There are also a number of persuasion techniques that employ the tactic of reciprocity. One of these is known as the "that's-not-all" technique. Let's say you're shopping for a new mobile phone. The salesperson shows your phone and tells you the price, but you're still not quite sure.
If the salesperson offers to add a phone case at no additional charge, you might feel like they're doing you a favor, which in turn might make you feel obligated to buy the phone. In many cases, the reciprocity norm is actually a good thing. It helps people behave in socially acceptable ways and allows them to engage in a social give-and-take with others. But what should you do if you are trying to overcome the urge to reciprocate, such as trying to avoid the need to purchase an item after receiving a freebie?
Some tips that can help:. Understanding how the reciprocity norm influences behavior may help you better evaluate persuasive messages and requests. Reciprocity is not always an even exchange, which opens up the potential for imbalance or even abuse. Research has shown that people are often willing to perform a proportionately larger favor after someone has done something small for them. Engaging in that first reciprocal exchange can make it more likely that you'll respond to other, often bigger, requests in the future.
In marketing, this is often called the "foot-in-the-door" technique. Someone starts off by making a small request, and once you agree to it, they then make a much bigger request.
Another approach known as the "door-in-the-face" technique can also be used to take advantage of reciprocity. The persuaded starts by asking for a very large favor that they know you will reject. They then appear to concede by asking for a much smaller favor, which you might then feel obligated to fulfill.
It is expected that the exchange will balance itself over time. Examples of this include kinship, friendship and close neighborly relationships where tokens, hospitality, or other helpful actions are exchanged back and forth over time when desired or necessary.
For example, you may buy a coffee for a friend one day, with the expectation that at some point in the future, they will do the same for you. Or, perhaps instead they decide to buy you dinner or help you move in to your new home. These small tokens are indicators that you wish to have a prolonged relationship and are not systematically tallied. Similarly, sharing a tray of freshly baked cookies in a communal area at school or work for anyone to enjoy would constitute this type of reciprocity, as would a hunter-gatherer sharing their meat with the entire camp.
Balanced reciprocity obligates the recipient to return, within a specific time limit, items understood to be of equal value. When we expect that we will receive a gift of equal value from someone that we have given a gift to, that is an example of balanced reciprocity. To illustrate, if you purchased a carefully selected Christmas present for a friend, but received nothing or an object of much lesser value in return, this would likely result in hurt feelings.
The difference between balanced reciprocity in non-market vs. In other cultures generalized reciprocity can occur within entire clans or large kin groups, for instance among the east Semai of Malaysia.
Between people who engage in generalized reciprocity, there is a maximum amount of trust and a minimum amount of social distance. Balanced or Symmetrical reciprocity occurs when someone gives to someone else, expecting a fair and tangible return at some undefined future date.
It is a very informal system of exchange. The expectation that the giver will be repaid is based on trust and social consequences; that is, a "mooch" who accepts gifts and favors without ever giving himself will find it harder and harder to obtain those favors.
In industrial societies this can be found among relatives, friends, neighbors, and coworkers. Balanced reciprocity involves a moderate amount of trust and social distance. Negative reciprocity is what economists call barter. A person gives goods or labor and expects to be repaid immediately with some other goods or labor of the same value.
0コメント