A Theory on Reciprocity
Collegiate affirmative action actually began in 1088, with the University of Bologna. It would be centuries before anyone but white men were allowed to even apply to a university, let alone attend or teach. So why all this noise around this most recent iteration, almost a millennia later? As it turns out, psychology’s rule of fairness has a fundamental flaw: people don’t feel equally obligated to reciprocate when the giver comes from a socially marginalized community. And this flaw is responsible for a whole host of wëirdness around “what seems fair.”
Think back to the last time someone did you a favor. Did you reciprocate? Were you generous? A cheap-skate?
Most of us fall somewhere in between these two poles: when we receive something, we look to respond in kind with something that seems fair.
It’s actually a psychological imperative--research suggests we are hard-wired for reciprocity.
And yet, we see direct contradictions to that compulsion in everything from the division of labor in our households, to the unending series of intractable conflicts and wars we see playing out on our television screens.
If we’re really all programmed to reciprocate fairly, why is it that when we look at how exchanges actually turn out, we often find that life isn’t fair?
What has science missed?
As it turns out, it’s partially because there are some of us who give more only to inevitably get less in return.
That hardly seems fair, it’s true. And because of that, the common reaction upon hearing this is an attempt to rationalize it. Maybe there’s a gap in negotiation skills or that person simply doesn’t know their worth. Maybe that person who gives less and gets more is simply a better, more confident negotiator.
What if I told you that even after accounting for education, negotiation skills, positive self-image and even the quality of relationship between the negotiators, there were still some who would give more and get less?
I call this phenomenon the Reciprocity Gap. To understand it—and perhaps most importantly to assess whether or not we’re that person—we first need to examine the concept of reciprocity as posited by its modern father, Dr. Robert Cialdini.
The Common Understanding
A professor of Psychology and Marketing, Cialdini is considered a foundational expert in the field of influence and persuasion. That status seems a given, seeing as his seminal work Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion is one of the best-selling books on persuasion of all time. In it, he describes six “universal” principles of persuasion based on consistent psychological shortcuts and instincts, or cognitive biases. And so, while they now primarily serve as the foundation of modern digital marketing and a majority of its compliance methods, these principles have also found their homes in a variety of fields interested in changing minds and getting to “yes.”
The Reciprocity Rule is one of these automatic and universal biases. In fact, he describes the obligation we feel to return a favor or concession as a “click, and, whirr” response: as soon as we get the right input our social programming takes over and executes an internalized script, automatically.
Where Things go Wrong
Interdependence and social stability are built upon the promise of reciprocity. Without it, social cohesion beyond family units falls to pieces–or so the theory goes. With reciprocity in place, “one person could give something to another with confidence that it was not being lost.” And it is true that things like working every day for a paycheck you receive every two weeks or paying for a product online and receiving it the following week, would be difficult if not impossible without this promise and its assurance of future repayment.
But that doesn’t mean, we’ve all been socialized into a web of future indebtedness that includes everyone.
Any student of history will tell you: interdependence has rarely been straightforward. In fact, interdependence has often looked different depending on where you are standing. For centuries people of color in the US (particularly Black Americans) and women were expected to exist outside of the rules of reciprocity. Because for centuries their labor was either unseen, unpaid or both.
These populations shared skills, energy, and services without the societal expectation of direct reciprocation. And in many cases, this lack of reciprocity was supported by the widely understood socio-cultural roles of these populations, roles that were often maintained with violence.
Or in franker terms, the affirmative action men (usually white and well off) of the world have enjoyed for centuries was bankrolled by the unseen labor of their mothers, sisters and/or wives and by the unpaid labor of their black and brown property. Without the exploitation of that labor, the economies that granted them wealth, success and prestige could not have existed.
Naturally, the law no longer prohibits women and people of color from pursuing gainful employment nor does it authorize this sort of exploitation**. However, the artifacts of that time, the persistence of social norms regarding race and gender roles, have not been as quick to adapt. Economic disparities like wage gaps and recent research imply inequitable reciprocation may be baked into these prevailing social norms of interdependence.
Oops. How Did We Miss That?
Evidently, the threat of social sanctions is supposed to keep fairness in check. To be fair, the societies of the world are not kind to those who break the Reciprocity Rule. In the US we call those who take without the intention or inclination of returning the favor a whole host of unpleasant names (see: mooch, barnacle—really any synonym for parasite).
The social sanctions attached are so intense, that we, moved by conditioned beliefs about fairness, obligation and the fabric of society, will go to great lengths to avoid being considered a part of their number.
It’s probably why (white) people flinch away from being called racists, and why men flinch away from being called sexists. Because these titles reflect a breakdown of reciprocity and fairness.
The problem is this: inequity is baked into our social norms. And those are notoriously difficult to shift. So while people do in fact flee from these titles, those on the parasite side of the equation who are also in the habit of leaving their instincts unexamined will also do everything they can to pretend the problem doesn’t exist. To invisibilize it. Otherwise the cognitive dissonance grows deeply uncomfortable. That’s where all the backlash to inclusion efforts, modern collegiate affirmative action and “wokeness” comes from.
So, while wonderfully egalitarian, this clean and largely straightforward accounting of reciprocity doesn’t reflect reality. At least not fully. Fortunately, recent studies are starting to validate the anecdotal experiences of millions, showing that this driving factor of exchange and social cohesion often intersects with and is shaped by implicit power dynamics.
So What Does This Actually Mean?
This means that social roles, as determined by social norms, may facilitate a Reciprocity Gap.
More specifically, they may actually warp how reciprocity and obligation are carried out across social categories.
Take for example recent studies that have shown children as young as three, viewing and applying interpersonal obligations differently across social categories like race.
Or the recent studies showing that social sanctions are applied differently across gender and race.
Taken together, the evidence suggests that social identity may affect how reciprocal a relationship or interaction may be.
This is no surprise to those living at the “You have to do twice as well to get half as much” side of the reciprocity food chain.
Nor are the disproportionate applications of social sanctions, should we fail to meet that 2x standard.
And the toll is anything but abstract. There’s the Superwoman Schema (SWS) in black women which includes: a drive to succeed despite limited resources, feeling an obligation to help others and a slew of troubling health outcomes and disparities.
And as an actual international mediator who has consulted on civil wars and other intra state conflicts, I can tell you with certainty that this gap is the precursor to every genocide recorded in history.
In the final analysis, the issue isn’t that the rule of reciprocity doesn’t work. It’s that the rule exists on a spectrum of equivalent exchange. It may not be enough for a social minority to be aware of the rule of reciprocity in order to utilize it, as Cialdini suggests in his work. She likely must compensate for implicit bias and as a result often may need to put more on the scale even knowing she can expect to receive less in return.
So, What Can We Do?
Behavioral science has shown us that it is not enough to be aware of implicit biases—that alone will not change behavior in the long term.
Instead, we need systems in place to prevent the Reciprocity Gap’s bearing fruit in our institutions and elsewhere. Precisely what these systems look like will require further study. Especially since it is possible that the Reciprocity Gap may occur within minority social groups as well.
Experiments and discussion on the Reciprocity Rule also illustrate a larger trend in experiments on cognitive biases and interventions and influence—namely that they haven’t taken the component of race—or intersectionality in general—very seriously until recently. As of this writing, behavioral Science canon doesn’t discuss a Reciprocity Gap or address disparities in reciprocation systemically at all.
As a result, those rules we consider “universal” likely tell us a great deal less about the full spectrum of human experience than we currently assume.
Psychology’s fundamental rule of fairness is flawed. This is not news. The ways in which it is flawed, and the possible causes? That is where the really interesting story is. A subset of the global minority has set up a system of affirmative action for themselves that in its current iteration, requires the exploitation of others. They have been willing to protect that system with violence, and often have. With social roles determined by the extent to which it was and is socially acceptable to be exploited, it is hardly a surprise that “equivalent exchange” is largely shaped by the implicit power dynamics that exist around us.
So what does this have to do with business? Join us in part 2 as we explore that and what it means for historically underrecognized leaders.
*See ‘When affirmative action was white’ by Ira Katznelson for an excellent primer
**Prison populations are often part of a system of unpaid, or very low wage labor. These populations, for reasons explored in great detail elsewhere, are overwhelmingly of color (See: The New Jim Crow).
This piece is a work in progress and is periodically updated as new insights come to light.