Norm of Reciprocity - Private and Public Reciprocity

Private and Public Reciprocity

Private reciprocity, also known as internal reciprocity, emphasizes repaying favors because of personal morals and an inherent obligation. Failing to repay kind favors brings feelings of guilt.

Public reciprocity, also known as social reciprocity, emphasizes acts of reciprocity and kindness that are publicly acknowledged, where the receiver knows who the provider is, with no anonymity. There is less of a personal reward, as the individual now is rewarded for following the social norm.

Mark A. Whatley and colleagues (1999) found that people who receive a favor will often return the favor, as opposed to people who are not given a favor and have the opportunity to give a favor. They also found that people will give more favors, like a higher donation, if it is a public condition.

Read more about this topic:  Norm Of Reciprocity

Famous quotes containing the words private, public and/or reciprocity:

    “We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.”
    —Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)

    “Constitutional statutes ... which embody the settled public opinion of the people who enacted them and whom they are to govern—can always be enforced. But if they embody only the sentiments of a bare majority, pronounced under the influence of a temporary excitement, they will, if strenuously opposed, always fail of their object; nay, they are likely to injure the cause they are framed to advance.”
    —Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    “Between women love is contemplative; caresses are intended less to gain possession of the other than gradually to re-create the self through her; separateness is abolished, there is no struggle, no victory, no defeat; in exact reciprocity each is at once subject and object, sovereign and slave; duality become mutuality.”
    —Simone De Beauvoir (1908–1986)