Reciprocity bias is our tendency to reciprocate the actions of others creating a wave of indebtedness. If somebody does something for us, or gives us something, we are more likely to return the favour or pass the favour on to others. We have the tendency to behave towards others as they behave towards us.
But why do people do this…
The impulse to reciprocate is powerful and cultural anthropologists have suggested it’s likely to be universal. The desire to return favours, pay back debts, and treat others well is beneficial for the whole group. Furthermore, the fact it engenders cooperation could have offered an evolutionary advantage. However, although good actions trigger more good actions in their wake, bad can also trigger bad; we tend to attack back if we’re being attacked.
Other disciplines have recognised our tendency
to reciprocate, long before behavioural science:
1) The anthropologist’s view: Cultural anthropologists have
suggested reciprocity is likely to be universal. The desire to return
favours, pay back debts and treat others well is beneficial for the whole group
and could have been an evolutionary advantage for humans as it engenders
cooperation.
2) The biologist’s view: Reciprocity and tit-for-tat isn’t unique
to humans. In fact, it’s so ingrained in evolutionary history that it is observable
in animals. For example:
- Macaques show reciprocal behaviour in grooming – individuals that are groomed are much more likely to groom or show support to their groomers than to monkeys that had not groomed them;
- And vampire bats will share their blood to feed the young of other bats in their colony, but if they are made to think one of the bats is not sharing, the other bats will cease to feed the young of that particular bat!
Most of us regularly engage in many different forms of reciprocity. One example of reciprocity is tipping in restaurants. Anecdotally, waiters know that including sweets or small gifts with the bill increases the chance that they will get a tip and that the tip may be more generous.
Psychologist Professor David Strohmetz and his colleagues conducted a study to explore reciprocity and tipping in the restaurant trade. In a downtown restaurant in New York State they recruited two seasoned waiters to either give a small piece of wrapped chocolate to diners along with the bill, or to give nothing, at random. On average, customers who had been given a chocolate gave a 17.8% tip compared to a 15.1% tip among those who had received nothing – over two percentage points higher. This would quickly add up over the course of a busy evening. If all customers had been given a chocolate, this would have meant an increase in total tips of 18% or an extra $76 per night.[1]
Companies often leverage reciprocity to build their brand and customer loyalty. For example, Lush – the handmade cosmetics company – often add a little extra something into shopper’s bags. Wiggle, the online sports retailer, slip in a packet of Haribo with their orders, as an extra something to nibble on when you open your delivery box. Airlines such as Swiss and Flybe hand out free chocolates near the end of their flights. At the smaller end of the scale, vegetable sellers in India have made a custom out of reciprocity by adding a free handful of fresh coriander and green chillies (staples in Indian cuisine) into your bag of veg when you pay.
So what does all this mean?
When drawn on effectively, reciprocity can be incredibly powerful and it’s so simple to put into practice. In our own research industry, think about how you might leverage it in the questions or tasks you set? Using behavioural science concepts, think how you might frame a question or what anchors you might use to build reciprocity with the respondents we work with? Think about the concept of building more reward and engagement for respondents – even how you might use gamification to build reciprocity.
And finally, think what kind of positive waves you can create today simply by letting a car pull out ahead of you in traffic and who knows where they might end and what happiness you could engender along the way.
NEXT IN THE SERIES: Every three weeks The Behavioural Architects will put another cognitive bias or behavioural economics concept under the spotlight. Our next article features the concept of hot cold empathy gap.
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System 1 & 2
Heuristics
Optimism bias
Availability bias
Inattentional blindness
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Anchoring
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[1] Strohmetz, Rind, Fisher & Lynn, “Sweetening the Till: The Use of Candy to Increase Restaurant Tipping”, 2002, Cornell
