文章基本信息

标题：Indirect Reciprocity: A Field Experiment
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作者：Jacobien van Apeldoorn ; Arthur Schram
期刊名称：CREED Working Papers / Center for Research in Experimental Economics and Political Decision-Making
出版年度：2014
出版社：Amsterdam
摘要：Indirect reciprocity involves cooperative acts towards strangers, either in response to their kindness tothird parties (downstream) or after receiving kindness from others oneself (upstream). It is considered tobe important for the evolution of cooperative behavior amongst humans. Though it has been widelystudied theoretically, the empirical evidence of indirect reciprocity has thus far been limited and basedsolely on behavior in laboratory experiments. In this paper, we provide the first evidence from a naturalfield experiment. This is conducted in an international online community with over 5 million members,where members can repeatedly ask and offer services to each other, free of charge. For the purpose ofthis study we created several new member profiles, which differ only in terms of their serving history. Halfof the profiles have a history of serving other members, whereas the other half has a neutral history. Wethen sent out a large number of service requests to different members from all over the world. Weobserve that a service request is more likely to be rewarded for those with a profile history of offering theservice (to third parties) in the past. This provides clear evidence of (downstream) indirect reciprocity. Ourresults cannot be attributed to reputational effects concerning one’s trustworthiness as a service user. Wefind no support for upstream indirect reciprocity, however
关键词：indirect reciprocity; natural field experiment; human cooperation