Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Jenna Varcak
University of Michigan
Abstract
Individuals frequently provide and repay favors for others, known as reciprocity. Previous
research has investigated how different forms of reciprocity can impact the incentive provided to
the individual completing the favor and how culture can impact reciprocal choices. Forty-five
college students were presented with an array of situations representing favors they may have
both their friends and acquaintances complete. Participants then indicated how they would repay
these favors. Based on this research, individuals will select reciprocity, which avoids a monetary
value and which has a delayed response rather than immediate repayment. Additionally,
individuals will treat friends and acquaintances from their organizations similarly only with
major differences occurring primarily for large favors. In this case, individuals will spend more
on acquaintances and will rely on only verbal thank yous for friends.
Imagine you are running late for work, your car will not start, and there is no available
public transportation. You frantically text your coworker to see if they can give you a ride, and
they agree. Now, suppose you are out to lunch with a friend and realize that you left your wallet
at home. Realizing that you have no form of payment, your friend pays for your meal. You might
be wondering how to repay your friend and coworker for their time, effort, and monetary favors.
You might consider an array of factors, including your relationship with the individual, what the
favor was, and what you would prefer if the situation were reversed. Reciprocity is the act of
171) and can be used to reduce the sense of indebtedness that can result from receiving a favor or
positive action (Settoon, Bennett, & Liden, 1996). Reciprocity can also be described as a
“behavioral response to a perceived kindness or unkindness” (Falk & Fischbacher, 2006, pg.
295). Reciprocity is important to society as it can lead to higher cooperation (Gintis, 2000).
While reciprocity may be viewed as irrational within economics according to the self-interest
model, Fehr and Gächter (2000) defend that in reciprocity, “people are frequently much nicer
and much more cooperative than predicted by the self-interest model.” (pg. 159).
Relationships are impacted by the choices individuals make when asking for and
ecological study of someone’s decision to reciprocate after receiving help from another, using
As defined by Clark and Mills, interactions within relationships are often defined by two
sets of norms or standards. Communal relationships offer and respond to requests based on the
needs of others. Exchange relationships do so in response to the reward or reciprocity offered for
completion of the favor (Clark & Mills, 1979). Thus, individuals in exchange relationships who
are providing favors will keep track of favors and reciprocity provided viewing them as a market
transaction (Clark, Mills, & Powell, 1986). Whether an individual uses communal or exchange
norms within a given interaction will depend on the closeness of the relationship and the cost of
favor. The ability of a favor to be reciprocated according to communal norms follows a direct
correlation between closer relationships and higher cost favors (Clark & Mills, 1993). Thus, an
individual is more likely to expect a direct repayment, or exchange norm response, when the
favor is for either a distant relationship or is of high cost to the individual. However, individuals
who are in a close relationship may still respond in communal norms for a high cost favor
meaning that the favor is agreed to without the knowledge of a direct repayment.
To remain within communal relationships, individuals must recognize and respond to the
needs of others (Clark & Jordan, 2002). Acting within communal relationships allows
individuals to remove the indebtedness which can come with asking for favors as the communal
relationships will be more aware of the reciprocity used to respond to favors allowing for the
continued exchange of favors. Another view of reciprocity can be seen in a prosocial view of
people performing acts of kindness for others. Again, it appears as though relationship type has
an influence on how individuals will respond to the call for these favors (Clark, Boothby,
Heyman and Ariely (2004) found that introducing a monetary amount into the presented reward
for a favor causes the interaction to be evaluated according to the monetary market. In this case,
participants view the monetary value as a measurement of payment and an indication of their
effort. Individuals compare the monetary value of reciprocity to the payment of other jobs in
terms of time and effort. In this case, individuals presented with monetary-based or monetarily-
stated rewards contributed less effort to the presented task than those who were given no reward.
“Indeed, just thinking about money makes us behave as most economists believe we behave -
and less like the social animals we are in our daily lives.” (Ariely, 2010, pg. 83). In contrast,
when reciprocity is not pushed into market considerations, it can remain in what Heyman and
Ariely (2004) refer to as social norms whereby the service is viewed as a favor and as part of the
Within groups, especially ones with defined membership, social favors and reciprocity
are essential, especially as organizations move from vertical structures to more team-based work
(Sanders & Schyns, 2006). Additionally, Hu (2011) notes that social exchange requires trust
helping behavior is how much organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) the employee has
culture. How individuals reciprocate favors within organizations can contribute to this workplace
culture. As stated by Buunk and Doosje (1993), “Indeed, it seems evident that in relationships at
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work concerns of reciprocity are of paramount importance.” (pg. 802). Smith (2002) explains
that people will only contribute to social capital if given the opportunity to do so. Thus, it is
important that employees feel comfortable asking their coworkers for favors and not experience
a high sense of indebtedness. This can be achieved through a history of good reciprocity or
communal norms that allow favors to occur without the need for immediate indebtedness and
reciprocity.
favors in addition to their regular work both in and out of their organizations. By comparing the
common reciprocal acts individuals use for friends and acquaintances they know through
organizational membership, we can see to what extent individuals bring societal norms into the
workplace. If there is a significant shift in behavior, this may indicate that organization leaders
While research in lab settings has clearly stated that non-monetary reciprocity will
produce the highest level of motivation by allowing communal relationships to persist and
prosocial behavior to lead their motivation, I am interested to know if individuals providing the
reciprocity are aware of this effect. This is particularly interesting due to the rise of online money
transfer methods like Venmo, which allow people to repay favors quickly with money.
Additionally, this phenomenon has yet to be studied in an ecological context, such as with
college students reciprocating for favors received (e.g., homework help or a ride). My research
will indicate if those providing reciprocities act similarly to what Heymen and Ariely found to be
most incentivizing for those asked to complete the favor. I will then examine what effect
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organizational membership, or relationship type, has on reciprocity and how this relates to the
Comparing the results of similar lab and ecological studies, List found that people behaved
In my research, individuals can choose reciprocal acts that are categorized as either
monetary, a future or equal favor, or a gift. They may also respond to favors without a reciprocal
act, but instead, give only a verbal thank you. I hypothesize that individuals will have an inherent
knowledge of the norms that govern their actions and will act according to them. In particular,
that individuals will avoid responding in a monetary way unless money is explicit or inherently
stated in a favor, which would place the favor into market considerations. Additionally,
individuals will hold communal relationships with their friends and exchange relationships with
their acquaintances leading to more explicit and well-defined reciprocal acts for acquaintances
Methods
Sample
introductory psychology course credit. Factoring out all incomplete responses resulted in a
sample size of (n = 45). Participants varied in age (mean = 18.78, SD = 0.795), gender (male =
1
SES was determined by having participants indicate where they fell on a ladder with the most well off nad 0 being
the least.
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Measures
An initial pilot study asked 130 undergraduates to describe a favor they asked both a
friend and acquaintance and how they reciprocated that favor. Results were analyzed by two
The main survey presented each participant with five situations twice, once involving a
“friend” and the other involving an “acquaintance from an organization” in a randomized order.
After being presented with each situation, each participant responded if their reciprocity
would consist of nothing, a verbal response, or an additional response. If the participant selected
either a verbal thank you and an additional response or no verbal thank you but an additional
response, they were then shown a list of options from which to choose. These choices were
Finally, for each situation, the participant was asked to determine the anticipated
monetary value of their selection. The monetary values provided quantitative data to compare the
1964). The social desirability scale presents participants with a series of statements to which they
respond true or false. Each prompt is related to an act that is considered socially desirable
(Appendix C).
Analytical Strategy
Given that every participant either selected “Verbal thank you” or “Verbal thank you and
something additional,” “Verbal thank you” was treated as a possible response and turned into
Verbal Thank You. Responses were dummy coded as being verbal thank you or not.
Equal Reciprocity. Includes the selection of equal favor. Responses were dummy coded
Future Favor. Includes the selection of promise of future favor. Responses were dummy
Monetary. Includes the selection of cash and money transfer app (i.e., Venmo).
Service. Includes the selection of cooking or baking for them, handwritten thank you
note, and purchased material gift. Responses were dummy coded as either being service or not.
Consumable Purchase. Includes the selection of buy lunch or dinner, bag of candy,
coffee other than Starbucks, and Starbucks. Responses were dummy coded as either being
Dollar Amount. The amount entered in response to “how much will this cost you.” For
ease of analysis, any response including “nothing” or “zero” was changed to $0.
Desirability Score, which was established by how many socially desirable answers they
provided.
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Results
General Results
The frequencies of each response by situation and relationship are presented in Table 2.
To begin my analysis, responses were coded as either Equal Reciprocity, Future Favor,
Monetary, Service, Consumable Purchase, or Verbal Thank You Only (Table 3).
Money Spent
Acquaintances will spend more on reciprocity than friends. To measure the extent of
spending, I ran a paired t-test of the difference between average spending on friends and
acquaintances in each situation (Table 4). Participants spent significantly more on acquaintances
on acquaintances than friends for their reciprocal acts. The amount spent on reciprocity was also
mediated by the participant’s social desirability score, child socioeconomic status, and their
thank you responses for both friends and acquaintances for each situation is listed in Table 6.
Then, I conducted a Pearson’s chi-squared test to measure the difference in frequency between
friends and acquaintances (Table 7). While the difference is not significant for any situation, or
overall, the most substantial differences are found in both the Airport Ride and Moving Furniture
situations. In both cases, verbal thank you only was selected more often for friends than
acquaintances. This is also true for an overall comparison of 106 to 96 (Table 6).
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Monetary Response
If monetary value is inherently stated or otherwise prompted that individuals will respond
monetarily. I computed conditional probabilities based on the total number of responses that
were and were not monetary when money was and was not stated, taking the Lunch situation as
the money stated condition (Table 8). The probability that a participant responded in a
Discussion
Throughout this research, I have been interested in measuring the extent to which college
students follow previous behavioral economic findings and how the relationship context affects
the reciprocity. My study presented participants with an array of situations, and their selection of
Figure 1
Response frequencies
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Figure 2
As seen in Figure1 and Figure 2, individuals responded similarly for both friends and
acquaintances, but varied their response based on the type of favor completed. The Verbal Thank
You response is present in each situation, and relationship type, and is the most common
response for the Class Notes and Tutoring situations. Other responses for these situations
included Future Favor and Purchased Material Gift, reflected in Service. However, for
acquaintances in the Tutoring situation, the Future Favor responses were replaced by Equal
Favor responses. This indicates a possible shift from communal exchange relationships as
individuals chose a more direct and recognizable reciprocity for the favor presented rather than
The Lunch situation, which is the monetary-based situation, explicitly stating the $10 cost
of lunch, sees a large number of monetary responses. While some individuals tended toward Buy
Lunch or Dinner or Equal Favor responses, these may also have been seen as monetary responses
as they reflect a repayment of the cost of lunch through the purchase of a future lunch (or
favor. Friends and acquaintances also spent nearly equal amounts on their reciprocity for this
situation, indicating that exchanges may operate on a minimum cost basis. In other words, once
individuals decide to use exchange norms for this interaction, they will not be enticed to spend
more than what is deemed appropriate, as in the case of the repayment of the $10 lunch.
Lunch situation and largely did not respond monetarily to the other situations. This indicates that
individuals are aware, consciously or unconsciously, of the most effective reciprocal acts and act
in accordance with what individuals respond to best. With the ease of access to money transfer
apps like Venmo, it is interesting that college students will go out of their way to purchase goods
The one exception to the non-monetary response for non-monetary situations is the
Airport Ride situation, which has the most varied response spanning each category. This may
indicate the inherent nature of the Airport Ride favor. While some individuals may look at the
money spent on gas for the ride, others may note the time and effort the other person was
required to contribute. Following the logic of the Lunch situation, those who looked to the price
of gas alone may be those who responded monetarily. The only notable difference occurs in the
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frequency of Verbal Thank You in which case individuals responded with Verbal Thank You
The Moving Furniture situation also saw an array of response types. Most common
remains Verbal Thank You, again with a higher frequency for friends than acquaintances.
Conversely, individuals responded with Future Favor more for acquaintances than friends. This
may further represent the difference between communal and exchange relationships and how
college students differently view the relationship with their friends and acquaintances from
organizations.
In terms of money spent, participants did spend more money on acquaintances. As seen
in Figure 3, The most substantial difference is for the Airport Ride situation. This is interesting
as the inherent cost of gas for equal situations presented for both friends and acquaintances
resulted in a higher repayment for acquaintances. This also makes sense as the Airport Ride
situation lets the participant decide the value of the given ride. The Airport Ride situation also
saw more friends give Verbal Thank You Only responses than acquaintances, also lowering the
Figure 3
Verbal Thank You responses. While the Verbal Thank You Only response was more common
for friends in each situation, except the Lunch situation in which it was only selected once for
each relationship, the difference was not large enough to be considered significant. The
difference is largest for the Airport Ride and Moving Furniture situations, which best explore
this idea as they are large favors in which a Verbal Thank You Only was not the majority. Also,
participants tended toward large reciprocal acts such as buying lunch or dinner.
have to work harder to maintain the relationship and, thus, tend toward larger and more involved
reciprocity between friends and acquaintances, while notable, is perhaps not large enough to
The value of having communal relationships in organizations is the potential for an easier
flow of favors among coworkers. As shown in Figure 4, the pilot study was able to capture the
frequencies at which individuals asked friends and acquaintances for different levels of favors.
Participates cited more low time/effort for acquaintances as the frequency of monetary and
medium and high time/effort situations decreased. This indicated that currently college students
are more comfortable asking their friends for the larger favors and the monetary favors which
may operate on an exchange basis within a communal relationship. While this is an interesting
occurrence, the order of frequencies for each type of situation remains consistent indicating that
perhaps the difference in reciprocity depends more on the type of favor rather than on the
relationship.
In this sample, individuals are shown to approach favors and reciprocity the same for
both friends and acquaintances indicating to organizations that little work is needed to support
communal relationships among coworkers. However, should the case arise where an excess of
indebtedness occurs in an organization and acquaintances are treated differently from friends, the
organization may benefit from actions taken to increase the social nature of their organization.
By investing in the social aspect of their work culture, organizational leaders can help
individuals develop the desire to have communal relationships with others. These relationships
will then support an environment in which individuals can ask for and receive favors without a
sense of indebtedness as the favor is done on the basis of need expressed by the individual rather
Figure 4
The most significant limitation of this study is the scale and sample size. Based on the
research completed here, future research may consider a more extensive array of situations to
better analyze the influences of the situation on reciprocity and how that interacts with social and
exchange norms. A larger sample size would have allowed a complete analysis and more
conclusive results. While college students experience organizations and, in most cases, have
experienced workplace environments, for this study, these organizations served as a proxy for
more formal organizations and workplace environments. It would be interesting to see if similar
results would be produced for a different age range that interacts with relationships differently
and potentially carries an altered set of cultural norms than what was measured for this study.
Other considerations for this data may include the fact that the majority of participants
were female. It may also be interesting to further explore the selection of name brands like
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Starbucks to other coffee options. While in this study coffee was rarely selected, situations could
be designed to better match the monetary investment of purchasing a coffee drink to evaluate
where individuals will buy their coffee and if this is due to the fact that it is being purchased as a
reciprocal act. For instance, individuals may receive an increased feeling of satisfaction from the
name brand product and overvalue the reciprocal act or the mention of a name brand may better
entice individuals to agree to favors. These may be considerations to better understand the
Conclusion
This study found that college students provide reciprocity for the favors provided by
friends and acquaintances following what previous research has deemed the most motivating for
those completing favors. While organizations should continue to promote social work
environments, this research shows that, at least for college students, individuals will bring their
cultural norms to the workplace and operate with their acquaintances as they would their friends.
In the goal of promoting effective teamwork, asking for and fulfilling favors is vital and
relationship, as explained by Clark and Mills, requires that individuals focus on the needs of
others. This research shows that college students are inclined to treat organization acquaintances
similar to friends allowing for this increased flow of favors and communal relationships.
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References
Ariely, D. (2010). Predictably irrational: The hidden forces that shape our decisions. New York:
Harper Perennial.
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reciprocity, social support, and stress at work: The role of exchange and communal
Clark, M. S., & Mills, J. (1979). Interpersonal attraction in exchange and communal
https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.37.1.12
Clark, M. S., Mills, J., & Powell, M. C. (1986). Keeping track of needs in communal and
Clark, M. S., & Mills, J. (1993). The difference between communal and exchange relationships:
What it is and is not. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19(6), 684–691.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167293196003
Clark, M. S., & Jordan, S. D. (2002). Adherence to communal norms: What it means, when it
occurs, and some thoughts on how it develops. New Directions for Child and Adolescent
Clark, M. S., Boothby, E. J., Clark-Polner, E. & Reis, H. T. (2015). Understanding prosocial
G. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of prosocial behavior (pp. 329-345). Oxford University
Press.
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Deckop, J. R., Cirka, C. C., & Andersson, L. M. (2003). Doing unto others: The reciprocity of
https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1026060419167
Fehr, E., & Gächter, S. (2000). Fairness and retaliation: The economics of reciprocity. The
Falk, A., & Fischbacher, U. (2006). A theory of reciprocity. Games and Economic Behavior,
Gintis, H. (2000). Strong reciprocity and human sociality. Journal of Theoretical Biology,
Heyman, J., & Ariely, D. (2004). Effort for payment: A tale of two markets. Psychological
Hu, X., Tetrick, L., & Shore, L. M.. (2011). Understanding reciprocity in organizations: A
https://doi.org/10.1108/02683941111164463
https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1964.15.3.703
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List, J. A. (2006). The behavioralist meets the market: Measuring social preferences and
https://doi.org/10.1086/498587
Sanders, K., & Schyns, B. (2006). Trust, conflict and cooperative behaviour: Considering
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Tables
Table 1
Favor
Low Time/Effort 20 30 -10
Medium Time/Effort 35 33 2
High Time/Effort 17 11 6
Low Monetary 10 6 4
Medium Monetary 13 8 5
High Monetary 2 1 1
Reciprocity
Verbal Thank You 19 33 -14
Equal Reciprocity 37 37 0
Future Favor 8 9 -1
Monetary 18 8 10
Service 16 12 4
Consumable Purchase 27 18 9
23
Table 2
Response frequencies
Table 3
Acquaintance 96 21 21 52 8 24
Class Friend 40 0 4 0 1 0
Notes
Acquaintance 37 0 5 0 3 0
Tutoring Friend 35 0 5 0 2 1
Acquaintance 35 6 0 0 0 3
Lunch Friend 2 1 0 40 0 2
Acquaintance 3 3 0 36 1 2
Airport Friend 16 5 7 12 1 4
Ride
Acquaintance 9 9 5 13 2 7
Moving Friend 19 4 4 0 3 14
Furniture
Acquaintance 12 3 11 3 2 12
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Table 4
Paired t-test comparing spending for friends (F) and acquaintances (A)
F 45 4.647
A 45 5.69
F 45 0.11
A 45 0.11
F 42 0.60
A 42 0.55
F 41 8.61
A 41 8.41
F 44 7.05
A 44 10.82
F 42 6.95
A 42 9.05
***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05
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Table 5
Table 6
Relationship
Total 106 96
Class Notes 40 37
Tutoring 35 35
Lunch 2 3
Airport Ride 16 9
Moving Furniture 19 12
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Table 7
Chi-squared test for verbal thank you only between friends and acquaintances
Situation Sig.
Total 0.130
Tutoring 1.000
Lunch 0.645
Table 8
Monetary totals
Money Stated
False True
Appendix A
Situation 2: Tutoring
Situation 3: Lunch
Appendix B
Reciprocation Choices
1st Round
Nothing
Verbal thank you and something additional (you will specify next)
No verbal thank you, but something else (you will specify next)
2nd Round
Cash
Equal favor
Bag of candy
Insomnia Cookies
Starbucks
Other
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Appendix C
There have been times when I felt like rebelling against people F
in authority even though I knew they were right.
There have been times when I was quite jealous of the good F
fortune of others.