Reciprocal Altruism Act

A Reciprocal Altruism Act is an act of altruism that temporarily reduces an organism's fitness while benefiting another organism, with the expectation of future reciprocation.

• AKA: Reciprocal Cooperation, Mutual Altruism, Delayed Reciprocity Act.
• Context:
  • It can establish Cooperative Relationships through repeated interactions and mutual benefits.
  • It can facilitate Resource Exchange through delayed reciprocation and social bonds.
  • It can promote Social Cooperation through trust building and reputation systems.
  • It can maintain Group Cohesion through mutual support and shared benefits.
  • It can evolve Social Strategys through natural selection and behavioral adaptation.
  • ...
  • It can often occur between unrelated individuals of the same species.
  • It can often develop across different species in symbiotic relationships.
  • It can often emerge spontaneously through genetic predispositions.
  • It can often strengthen through repeated successful exchanges.
  • ...
  • It can range from being a Simple Exchange to being a Complex Network, depending on its social complexity.
  • It can range from being a Short-Term Cooperation to being a Long-Term Alliance, depending on its temporal scope.
  • It can range from being a Direct Reciprocation to being an Indirect Reciprocation, depending on its exchange pattern.
  • ...
• Examples:
  • Reciprocal Altruism Types, such as:
    • Human Reciprocal Acts, such as:
      • Social Favor Exchanges for mutual assistance.
      • Resource Sharing for communal benefit.
      • Knowledge Transfer for collective learning.
    • Animal Reciprocal Acts, such as:
      • Food Sharing among vampire bats.
      • Grooming Exchange in primates.
      • Coalition Formation in dolphins.
    • Cross-Species Reciprocal Acts, such as:
      • Cleaner Fish Services for larger fish.
      • Plant-Pollinator Interactions for mutual benefit.
      • Symbiotic Relationships for survival advantage.
  • ...
• Counter-Examples:
  • Kin Altruism, which relies on genetic relatedness rather than reciprocation.
  • Pure Altruism, which lacks expectation of return benefit.
  • Coerced Cooperation, which involves forced participation rather than voluntary exchange.
  • One-Time Donation, which has no future interaction component.
• See: Evolutionary Game Theory, Tit For Tat, Social Incentive, Principal-Agent Dilemma, Cooperation Strategy, Social Exchange Theory.

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References

2014

• (Wikipedia, 2014) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/reciprocal_altruism Retrieved:2014-10-17.
  • In evolutionary biology, reciprocal altruism is a behaviour whereby an organism acts in a manner that temporarily reduces its fitness while increasing another organism's fitness, with the expectation that the other organism will act in a similar manner at a later time. The concept was initially developed by Robert Trivers to explain the evolution of cooperation as instances of mutually altruistic acts. The concept is close to the strategy of “tit for tat” used in game theory.

2014

• (Fukuyama, 2014a) ⇒ Francis Fukuyama. (2014). “Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy." Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN:0374227357
  • QUOTE: Natural human sociability is built around two phenomena: kin selection and reciprocal altruism. The first is a recurring pattern by which sexually reproducing animals behave altruistically toward one another in proportion to the number of genes they share; that is, they practice nepotism and favor genetic relatives. Reciprocal altruism involves an exchange of favors or resources between unrelated individuals of the same species, or sometimes between members of different species. Both behaviors are not learned but genetically coded and emerge spontaneously as individuals interact.

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