Abstract
Reciprocity, regarded as a fundamental psychological phenomenon, may underlie a wide range of interpersonal and intergroup behaviors. Various disciplines such as behavioral economics, anthropology, sociology, and psychology as well documented how reciprocity is a strong determinant of human behavior. On the other hand, less is known about intergroup reciprocity, its functions and consequences as well as the psychological mechanisms through which these effects manifest, remain mostly unknown. In this paper, we propose a model to understand how the reciprocity norm operates in the intergroup contexts, through employing the Personal Norm of Reciprocity model (Perugini et al., 2003) and the Self-Categorization Theory (Turner et al., 1987). We suggest that the conditions that give rise to intergroup reciprocal behavior are ingroup identification, labeling outgroup behavior as a favor or transgression, and the internalization of the reciprocity norm. We also propose that the intergroup outcomes, such as ingroup favoritism, discrimination, collective action, and conflict resolution, might become more understandable when taking into account the reciprocity as an explanatory variable.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
Notes
We would like to thank the reviewer David Carré for this input.
References
Abrams, D., & Hogg, M. A. (1998). Social identifications: A social psychology of intergroup relations and group processes. London: Routledge.
Adams, J. S. (1963). Towards an understanding of inequity. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(5), 422–436.
Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley.
Al Ramiah, A., Hewstone, M., Dovidio, J. F., & Penner, L. A. (2010). The social psychology of discrimination: Theory, measurement and consequences. In L. Bond, F. McGinnity, & H. Russell (Eds.), Making equality count: Irish and international research measuring equality and discrimination (pp. 84–112). Dublin: The Liffey Press.
Altemeyer, B. (2004). Highly dominating, highly authoritarian personalities. The Journal of Social Psychology, 144(4), 421–448. https://doi.org/10.3200/SOCP.144.4.421-448.
Altman, I. (1973). Reciprocity of interpersonal exchange. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 3(2), 249–261. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5914.1973.tb00325.x.
Axelrod, R. (1980). Effective choice in the prisoner’s dilemma. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 24(1), 3–25.
Axelrod, R., & Hamilton, W. D. (1981). The evolution of cooperation. Science, 211, 1390–1396. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01539342.
Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (2004). The evolution of strong reciprocity: Cooperation in heterogeneous populations. Theoretical Population Biology, 65(1), 17–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tpb.2003.07.001.
Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (2011). A cooperative species: Human reciprocity and its evolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (1982). Cultural transmission and the evolution of cooperative behavior. Human Ecology, 10(3), 325–351. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01531189.
Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (1988). The evolution of reciprocity in sizable groups. Journal Of Theoretical Biology, 132, 337–356. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2009.01.004.
Brown, R. (2000). Social Identity Theory: Past achievements, current problems and future challenges. European Journal of Social Psychology, 30, 745–778.
Burger, J. M., Sanchez, J., Imberi, J. E., & Grande, L. R. (2009). The norm of reciprocity as an internalized social norm: Returning favors even when no one finds out. Social Influence, 4(1), 11–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/15534510802131004.
Buunk, B. P., & Prins, K. S. (1998). Loneliness, exchange orientation, and reciprocity in friendships. Personal Relationships, 5(1), 1–14.
Cameron, L. A. (1999). Raising the stakes in the ultimatum game: Experimental evidence from Indonesia. Economic Inquiry, 37(1), 47–59. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7295.1999.tb01415.x.
Cialdini, R. B., Vincent, J. E., Lewis, S. K., Catalan, J., Wheeler, D., & Darby, B. L. (1975). Reciprocal Concessions Procedure for Inducing Compliance: The door-in-the-face technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31(2), 206–215.
Clark, K., & Sefton, M. (2001). The sequential prisoner’s dilemma: Evidence on reciprocation. The Economic Journal, 111(1), 51–68. https://doi.org/10.1302/0301-620X.85B2.12823.
Crocker, J., & Luhtanen, R. (1990). Collective self-esteem and ingroup bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(1), 60.
Curry, O. S., Mullins, D. A., & Whitehouse, H. (2019). Is it good to cooperate? Testing the theory of morality-as-cooperation in 60 societies. Current Anthropology, 60(1), 47–69.
Dasgupta, N., Banaji, M. R., & Abelson, R. P. (1999). Group entitativity and group perception: Associations between physical features and psychological judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(5), 991–1003. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.5.991.
Dixon, J., & McKeown, S. (2021). Negative contact, collective action, and social change: Critical reflections, technological advances, and new directions. Journal of Social Issues, 77(1), 242–257.
Doosje, B., & Haslam, S. A. (2005). What have they done for us lately? The dynamics of reciprocity in intergroup contexts. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 35(3), 508–535. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2005.tb02133.x.
Eder, P., Aquino, K., Turner, C., & Reed, A. (2006). Punishing those responsible for the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib: The influence of the negative reciprocity norm (NRN). Political Psychology, 27(6), 807–821. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2006.00538.x.
Eisenberger, R., Lynch, P., Aselage, J., & Rohdieck, S. (2004). Who takes the most revenge? Individual differences in negative reciprocity norm endorsement. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(6), 787–799. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167204264047.
Emerson, R. M. (1976). Social Exchange Theory. Annual Review of Sociology, 2, 335–362. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315745572-14.
Falk, A., & Fischbacher, U. (2006). A theory of reciprocity. Games and Economic Behavior, 54(2), 293–315.
Fehr, E., & Gächter, S. (2000). Cooperation and punishment in Public Goods experiments. American Economic Review, 90(4), 980–994. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.90.4.980.
Fiske, A. P. (1992). The four elementary forms of sociality: Framework for a unified theory of social relations. Psychological Review, 99(4), 689–723. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.99.4.689.
Fiske, A. P. (2000). Complementarity Theory: Why human social capacities evolved to Require Cultural complements. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4(1), 76–94. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0401_7.
Fiske, A. P., & Rai, T. S. (2014). Virtuous violence: Hurting and killing to create, sustain, end, and honor social relationships. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Forsyth, D. R. (2013). Social influence and group behavior. In H. Tennen, J. Suls, & I. B. Weiner (Eds.), Handbook of psychology: Personality and social psychology (pp. 305–328). New York: Wiley.
Funder, D. C. (1980). The “trait” of ascribing traits: Individual differences in the tendency to trait ascription. Journal of Research in Personality, 14(3), 376–385.
Gintis, H. (2000). Strong reciprocity and human sociality. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 206(2), 169–179. https://doi.org/10.1006/jtbi.2000.2111.
Gintis, H. (2003). The hitchhiker’s guide to altruism: Gene-culture coevolution, and the internalization of norms. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 220(4), 407–418. https://doi.org/10.1006/jtbi.2003.3104.
Gintis, H., Bowles, S., Boyd, R., & Fehr, E. (2003). Explaining altruistic behavior in humans. Evolution and Human Behavior, 24(3), 153–172. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(02)00157-5.
Gintis, H., Henrich, J., Bowles, S., Boyd, R., & Fehr, E. (2008). Strong reciprocity and the roots of human morality. Social Justice Research, 21(2), 241–253. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-008-0067-y.
Goldstein, J. S. (2006). Reciprocity in superpower relations: An empirical analysis. International Studies Quarterly, 35(2), 195. https://doi.org/10.2307/2600470.
Goldstein, J. S., & Pevehouse, J. C. (2006). Reciprocity, bullying, and International Cooperation: Time-series Analysis of the Bosnia Conflict. American Political Science Review, 91(03), 515–529. https://doi.org/10.2307/2952072.
Goldstein, J. S., Pevehouse, J. C., Gerner, D. J., & Telhami, S. (2001). Reciprocity, triangularity, and cooperation in the Middle East, 1979-97.Journal of Conflict Resolution,594–620.
Gouldner, A. W. (1960). The norm of reciprocity: A preliminary Statement. American Sociological Review, 25(2), 161–178.
Grieve, P. G., & Hogg, M. A. (1999). Subjective uncertainty and intergroup discrimination in the minimal group situation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(8), 926–940. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672992511002.
Güth, W., & Kocher, M. G. (2014). More than thirty years of ultimatum bargaining experiments: Motives, variations, and a survey of the recent literature. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 108, 396–409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2014.06.006.
Güth, W., Schmittberger, R., & Schwarze, B. (1982). An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 3, 367–388. https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-2681(82)90011-7.
Hargreaves-Heap, S. P., & Varoufakis, Y. (2004). Game theory, a critical introduction (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Hayward, L. E., Tropp, L. R., Hornsey, M. J., & Barlow, F. K. (2017). Toward a comprehensive understanding of intergroup contact: Descriptions and mediators of positive and negative contact among majority and minority groups. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43(3), 347–364.
Henrich, J., & Boyd, R. (2001). Why people punish defectors: Weak conformist transmission can stabilize costly enforcement of norms in cooperative dilemmas. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 208(1), 79–89. https://doi.org/10.1006/jtbi.2000.2202.
Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H., & McElreath, R. (2001). In search of homo economicus: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies. American Economic Review, 91(2), 73–78.
Henrich, J., Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (2008). Five misunderstandings about cultural evolution. Human Nature, 19(2), 119–137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-008-9037-1.
Herman, C. P., Roth, D. A., & Polivy, J. (2003). Effects of the presence of others on food intake: A normative interpretation. Psychological Bulletin, 129(6), 873–886. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.129.6.873.
Homans, G. C. (1958). Social behavior as exchange. The American Journal of Sociology, 63(6), 597–606.
Hornsey, M. J. (2008). Social Identity Theory and Self-categorization theory: A historical review. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2(1), 204–222. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00066.x.
Hugh-Jones, D., & Leroch, M. A. (2017). Intergroup revenge: A laboratory experiment. Homo Oeconomicus, 34(2–3), 117–135. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41412-017-0049-0.
İçli, T. G. (1994). Blood feud in Turkey: A sociological analysis. The British Journal of Criminology, 34(1), 69–74.
Jourard, S. M., & Landsman, M. J. (1960). Cognition, cathexis, and the “dyadic effect” in men’s self-disclosing behavior. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly of Behavior and Development, 6(3), 178–186.
Judd, C. M., Park, B., Yzerbyt, V. Y., Gordijn, E. H., & Muller, D. (2005). Attributions of intergroup bias and outgroup homogeneity to ingroup and outgroup others. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35(6), 677–704.
Kalin, R., & Berry, J. W. (1996). Interethnic attitudes in Canada: Ethnocentrism, consensual hierarchy and reciprocity. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 28(4), 253–261. https://doi.org/10.1037/0008-400X.28.4.253.
Karagonlar, G., & Kuhlman, D. M. (2013). The role of Social Value Orientation in response to an unfair offer in the Ultimatum game. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 120(2), 228–239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2012.07.006.
Kelln, B. R., & Ellard, J. H. (1999). An equity theory analysis of the impact of forgiveness and retribution on transgressor compliance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(7), 864–872.
Kolm, S. C. (2008). Reciprocity: An Economics of Social Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Komorita, S. S., Hilty, J. A., & Parks, C. D. (1991). Reciprocity and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 35(3), 494–518. https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.272.2.843.
Li, Y. J., Johnson, K. A., Cohen, A. B., Williams, M. J., Knowles, E. D., & Chen, Z. (2012). Fundamental (ist) attribution error: Protestants are dispositionally focused. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(2), 281–290.
Liberman, P., & Skitka, L. (2019). Vicarious retribution in US public support for war against Iraq. Security Studies, 28(2), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2019.1551568.
Lickel, B., Miller, N., Stenstrom, D. M., Denson, T. F., & Schmader, T. (2006). Vicarious retribution: The role of collective blame in intergroup aggression. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(4), 372–390. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr1004_6.
Liebrand, W. B. (1984). The effect of social motives, communication and group size on behaviour in an N-person multi‐stage mixed‐motive game. European Journal of Social Psychology, 14(3), 239–264.
Mauss, M. (2001). The gift: The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies. London: Routledge.
Mummendey, A., Kessler, T., Klink, A., & Mielke, R. (1999). Strategies to cope with negative social identity: Predictions by social identity theory and relative deprivation theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(2), 229–245. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.2.229.
Nawata, K., & Yamaguchi, H. (2011). The ingroup audience effect on intergroup vicarious retribution. Research in Social Psychology, 26(3), 167–177.
Nawata, K., & Yamaguchi, H. (2013). Intergroup retaliation and intra-group praise gain: The effect of expected cooperation from the in-group on intergroup vicarious retribution. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 16(4), 279–285. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12032.
Nisbett, R. E., & Cohen, D. (1996). Culture of honor: The psychology of violence in the South. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Norenzayan, A., & Nisbett, R. E. (2000). Culture and causal cognition. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(4), 132–135.
Perugini, M., Gallucci, M., Presaghi, F., & Ercolani, A. P. (2003). The personal norm of reciprocity. European Journal of Personality, 17, 251–283.
Polanyi, K. (1944). The great transformation: Economic and political origins of our time. New York: Rinehart.
Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., & Levin, S. (2006). Social dominance theory and the dynamics of intergroup relations: Taking stock and looking forward. European Review of Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463280601055772.
Pritchard, R. D. (1969). Equity theory: A review and critique. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 4(2), 176–211. https://doi.org/10.1016/0030-5073(69)90005-1.
Robbins, E., & Rochat, P. (2011). Emerging signs of strong reciprocity in human ontogeny. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 353. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00353.
Roccas, S., & Sagiv, L. (2010). Personal values and behavior: Taking the cultural context into account. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4(1), 30–41.
Roth, A. E. (1993). The early history of Experimental Economics. Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 15(02), 184. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837200000936.
Rubin, M., & Hewstone, M. (1998). Social Identity Theory’s self-esteem hypothesis: A review and some suggestions for clarification. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2(1), 40–62. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0201_3.
Sahlins, M. (1972). Stone age economics. Chicago: Aldine Atherton, Inc.
Schindler, S., Reinhard, M. A., & Stahlberg, D. (2012). Mortality salience increases personal relevance of the norm of reciprocity. Psychological Reports, 111(2), 565–574. https://doi.org/10.2466/20.02.21.PR0.111.5.565-574.
Schindler, S., Reinhard, M. A., & Stahlberg, D. (2013). Tit for tat in the face of death: The effect of mortality salience on reciprocal behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(1), 87–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.06.002.
Sherif, M., Harvey, O. J., White, B. J., Hood, W. R., & Sherif, C. W. (1961). Intergroup conflict and cooperation: The robbers Cave experiment. Noman: University of Oklahoma.
Stenstrom, D. M., Lickel, B., Denson, T. F., & Miller, N. (2008). The roles of ingroup identification and outgroup entitativity in intergroup retribution. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(11), 1570–1582. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167208322999.
Tajfel, H., Billig, M. G., Bundy, R. P., & Flament, C. (1971). Social categorization and intergroup behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1(2), 149–178. https://doi.org/10.1109/20.92659.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin, & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33–47). Monterey: Brooks Cole.
Thaler, R. H. (2016). Behavioral economics: Past, present, and future. American Economic Review, 106(7), 1577–1600. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.106.7.1577.
Tomer, J. F. (2007). What is behavioral economics? Journal of Socio-Economics, 36(3), 463–479. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2006.12.007.
Trivers, R. L. (1974). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 46(1), 35–57. https://doi.org/10.1086/406755.
Turner, J. C., Hogg, M. A., Oakes, P. J., Reicher, S. D., & Wetherell, M. S. (1987). Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory. Oxford & New York: Blackwell.
Üzümçeker, E., & Akfırat, S. (2021). Distribution strategies in minimal group paradigm, social norms, and self-esteem.Turkish Journal of Psychology, 37(88),31–33.
Vasquez, E. A., Wenborne, L., Peers, M., Alleyne, E., & Ellis, K. (2015). Any of them will do: In-group identification, out-group entitativity, and gang membership as predictors of group-based retribution. Aggressive Behavior, 41(3), 242–252. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21581.
Walker, I., & Pettigrew, T. F. (1984). Relative deprivation theory: An overview and conceptual critique. British Journal of Social Psychology, 23(4), 301–310. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1984.tb00645.x.
Welch Larson, D. (1988). The psychology of reciprocity in International Relations. Negotiation Journal, 4(3), 281–302.
Wilson, D. S. (1997). Human groups as units of selection. Science, 276(5320), 1816–1817.
Yamagishi, T., Horita, Y., Mifune, N., Hashimoto, H., Li, Y., Shinada, M., & Simunovic, D. (2012). Rejection of unfair offers in the ultimatum game is no evidence of strong reciprocity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(50), 20364–20368. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1212126109
Zelmer, J. (2003). Linear public goods experiments: A meta-analysis. Experimental Economics, 6(3), 299–310. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026277420119.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Üzümçeker, E., Akfırat, S. The Norm of Reciprocity in Intergroup Context: A Normative-Identity Model. Integr. psych. behav. 58, 338–360 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-023-09760-5
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-023-09760-5