Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - February 2012 - Volume 35, Issue 01  

Open Peer Commentary

Strong reciprocity is not uncommon in the “wild”

W. G. Runcimana1

a1 Sociology, Trinity College, Cambridge CB2 1TQ, United Kingdom. wgr@wgrunciman.u-net.com http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/index.php7pageid=538

Abstract

Guala is right to draw attention to the difficulty of extrapolating from the experimental evidence for weak or strong reciprocity to what is observed in the “wild.” However, there may be more strong reciprocity in real-world communities than he allows for, as strikingly illustrated in the example of the Mafia.

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    Reciprocity: Weak or strong? What punishment experiments do (and do not) demonstrate Francesco Guala Department of Economics, University of Milan, 20122 Milan, Italy. francesco.guala@unimi.it http://users.unimi.it/guala/index.htm