Homo reciprocans

Homo reciprocans, or reciprocating human, is the concept in some economic theories of humans as cooperative actors who are motivated by improving their environment. This concept stands in contrast to the idea of homo economicus, which states the opposite theory that human beings are exclusively motivated by self-interest.

Kropotkin

Russian theorist Peter Kropotkin wrote about the concept of "mutual aid" in the early part of the 20th century.

Examples

The homo reciprocans concept states that human being players interact with a propensity to cooperate. They will compromise in order to achieve a balance between what is best for them and what is best for the environment they are a part of. Homo reciprocans players, however, also are motivated by justification. If a second player is perceived as having done something wrong or insulting, the first player is willing to "take a hit," even with no foreseeable benefits, in order for the second player to suffer.

A common example of this interaction is the haggler and shopkeeper. If the haggler wants a deal and the shopkeeper wants a sale, the haggler must carefully choose a price for the shopkeeper to consider. The shopkeeper will consider a lower price (or a price in between) based on the benefit of selling a product. If the haggler's offer is a low-ball, which may be offensive to the shopkeeper, the shopkeeper may refuse simply on the grounds that he is offended, and will knowingly and purposely lose the sale.

Positive and negative reciprocity

Reciprocal players are willing to reward behaviour that is just or fair, and to punish unjust or unfair behaviour. Empirical evidence suggests that positive and negative reciprocity are fundamentally different behavioral dispositions in the sense that the values for positive and negative reciprocity in individuals are only weakly correlated and that these values correlate differently with factors such as gender or age. A possible explanation is “that negative and positive reciprocity are different because they tap into different emotional responses”.

Positive reciprocity correlates with height, with increasing age, with female gender, with higher income as well as higher number of hours of work, with a higher number of friends and with higher over-all life satisfaction. Evidence indicates that “married individuals are more positively reciprocal, but are not different from the unmarried in terms of negative reciprocity”. Among employees, negative reciprocity appear to be correlated with a higher number of sick days. Positive reciprocity correlates with low unemployment, and negative reciprocity strongly correlates with unemployment. High levels of positive reciprocity correlate with higher income, but no correlation appears to exist between negative reciprocity and income.

See also

• Homo economicus
• Agent (economics)
• Behavioral economics
• Dictator game
• Gratitude
• Rational agent
• Rational choice theory
• Economic rationalism
• List of alternative names for the human species
• Modern portfolio theory
• Pirate game
• Post-autistic economics
• Rational pricing
• Homo biologicus
• Samuel Bowles
• Herbert Gintis

External links

• Rational self interest, Prof. Roger A. McCain, Drexel University
• Self-Interest, Homo Islamicus and Some Behavioral Assumptions in Islamic Economics and Finance (DOC) by Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq
• Reciprocans a blog by current economics PhD student at the University of Cambridge Dan Gibbons BCom (Melbourne), MSc (Queensland) and Tasman Bain of the University of Queensland with the patronage of former Stanford University Professor Peter Corning
• Requiem for Homo Economicus Edward J. O’Boyle, Mayo Research Institute, a refutation of reductionism in free will using tenets of natural law