Reciprocal Altruism
Updated 2026-08-10
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Reciprocal altruism, formalized by biologist Robert Trivers, explains helping behavior between unrelated individuals as delayed exchange. Its core proposition is that a costly act toward another can be favored when the future return exceeds the present cost. The key qualifiers are recognition, memory, and repetition: the mechanism requires that parties can identify each other, remember past behavior, and expect further interactions, so it fails in anonymous or one-off encounters.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Credit deposit: offer help early before you ever actually need to withdraw anything yourself. - Ledger tracking: track who reciprocates and who repeatedly free-rides on the whole group. - Withdrawal rule: withdraw cooperation promptly from any partner who has repeatedly defected on you.
Anchor fast decisions
In a repeated game, a partner who defects gains once but forfeits all future cooperation. When the discounted value of future returns exceeds the one-time gain from cheating, cooperation becomes the higher-paying strategy for both sides, so tit-for-tat style reciprocity survives selection and spreads through populations.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruismverified
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