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Blood, sex, personality, power, and altruism: Factors influencing the validity of strong reciprocity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2012

Eamonn Ferguson
Affiliation:
Personality and Social Psychology Group, School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, United Kingdom. eamonn.ferguson@nottingham.ac.ukhttp://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/ef/home.html
Philip Corr
Affiliation:
School of Social Work and Psychology, and Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS); University of East Anglia., Norwich NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom. P.Corr@uea.ac.ukhttp://www.ueapsychology.net/differential-psychology-pg14.html

Abstract

It is argued that the generality of strong reciprocity theory (SRT) is limited by the existence of anonymous spontaneous cooperation, maintained in the absence of punishment, despite free-riding. We highlight how individual differences, status, sex, and the legitimacy of non-cooperation need to be examined to increase the internal and ecological validity of SRT experiments and, ultimately, SRT's external validity.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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