Strong reciprocity

Strong reciprocity refers to the tendency in human behavior, cooperative action altruistic - so at their own expense, without even gain an advantage - to reward and punish altruistic norms deviant, fraudulent behavior.

People often behave cooperatively towards not genetically related strangers. This behavior is then observed when the probability is extremely low, to meet this stranger again (see Reciprocal altruism ), and reputation does not matter (see Indirect reciprocity). One example is, an unknown taxi driver in a big city abroad to pay tip. Such behavior was in many controlled economic experiments demonstrated ( Camerer 2003; Fehr & Fischbacher 2003; Gintis et al 2003. ). Further experiments ( Fehr et al 2002. ), Social preference theories ( Rabin 1993, Fehr & Schmidt 1999, Dufwenberg & Kirch Steiger 2004; Falk & Fischbacher 2006) and evolutionary theories ( Gintis 2000; Henrich & Boyd 2001;. Boyd et al 2003; Bowles & Gintis 2004) have also shown that a particular form of this strongly reciprocal behavior is particularly relevant for the establishment and maintenance of cooperation between strangers: strong reciprocity is characterized by the reward cooperative acts and punishing uncooperative actions. As a consequence of strong reciprocity is an important incentive for cooperation between strangers.