However, anthropologists and other social scientists have known for decades that in the context of relationships where one person has more power, status, or influence, reciprocal generosity is usually not the norm. Researchers at MIT have now experimentally demonstrated, for the first time, that small changes to the relationship context can dramatically change people's actions and expectations of reciprocal generosity. During interactions between people of different social status, people tend to expect that generosity will flow one way, and it can be either up or down. It may be that a professor always buys coffee for her students, or that a student always offers to help carry groceries for his resident advisor. Once the precedent is established, it is expected to continue. One interpretation of the findings is that keeping track of whose turn it is to do a favor is the exception in social interactions, not the rule. That is, it is extra work that we do when we want to maintain...
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