Reciprocal Altruism

They showed me this idea in PSYCH101. I didn’t know there was a term for this.

I talk about this idea in Should you Recycle? Here’s the provocative answer..

“You help others to help yourself”.

Ingroup members are those we are expected to cooperate with and who are expected to cooperate with us.

Example

Your neighbor is vacationing out of town for two weeks and asks you to keep an eye on her home, to water her plants, and to feed her pet. It is costly for you to do so because you have to expend mental energy and physical effort to tend to her property that could have been spent elsewhere, but it is a relatively small sacrifice to make (low cost). On the other hand, your neighbor receives a large benefit; she returns home to find her pet and plants alive and that nobody has robbed her.

Why should you be willing to pay this small cost to look after your neighbour’s property? Because the next time you are out of town, you will ask her to look after your property, and she will likely say yes. By taking turns in this way, both you and your neighbor do better (receiving large benefits) than you would if you refused to pay the small cost of cooperation.