PS 410 WEEK-2

Reciprocity is one of the most widespread and basic of all social norms in human culture. The rule requires a person try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided to them.

By obligating the recipiant of an act to repayment sometime in the future, the benefactor can give something to another person with the confidence that it is not being lost.

The rule of reciprocity makes possible various kinds of continuing relationships, transactions, and exchanges that are beneficial to society as a whole.

The rule is extremely powerful, often overwhelming the influence of other factors that normally determine compliance with a request.

The rule applies to first (uninvited) favors. This reduces our ability to decide when we wish to owe someone. This puts this choice of you being indebted to someone else into the hands of others.

The rule can spur unequal exchanges. To avoid the psychologically uncomfortable feeling of indebtedness, the recipient will often agree to reciprocate with an even larger favor than the one they received.

Instead of providing a first favor that stimulates a return favor, an individual can make an initial concession that stimulates a return concession.

Also referred to as the door-in-your-face technique, this compliance technique relies heavily on the pressure to reciprocate concessions. The process is initiated with an extreme request that is sure to be rejected. The requester then appears to concede with a much less extreme request which was the original goal from the beginning.

Accept initial concessions in good faith, but be prepared to redefine them as tricks should they later be proved as such. Once they are redefined this way, the sense of obligation to reciprocate to these tricks will no longer be present.