Journal Entry #11

Journal Entry #11

Rule of Reciprocity

Something I am grateful does not happen more often is losing my college ID card. This happened to me about two weeks ago when I was performing stage manager duties by moving things around from storage to our performance space. This may not seem like a terrible problem to others until they learn that at my college, your ID card is basically your key to survival. It is what you use to get into your dorm building, how you are identified at school events, and most importantly, your source of food. Every time you enter the dining hall, your card must be swiped so that the college can keep track of how you are using your meal plan.

So losing my college ID can now be identified as a big deal. Unfortunately, it slipped out of my pocket at night, presumably when I was pulling out my phone, and then subsequently fell into the grass between the storage and performance spaces. Taking appropriate action, I retraced my steps, looking for it all over the green, but could not find it anywhere. Then I went to our campus safety building, answered an officer’s questions about the situation, and was assured I would be called if anyone turned in my card. Then the officer at the desk called another officer who was doing driving rounds throughout the campus, and asked him to please give me a lift to my dorm. I did not have to wait long at all before the second officer came and I thanked the first for her help.

                After the pleasant drive over to my dorm, I thanked that officer as well, both for the drive and for getting me access into the building. Without him, I would have had to call a friend or wait for someone else to walk to the dorm and card in. I was very grateful for his presence, but there was no other way to show this except for saying thank you. After a late night, I just hoped all would be well in the morning. I would have loved to wake up to a phone call about my card.

                 This sadly did not happen to me, no such phone call came. As we walked to breakfast, I asked my friends to please keep a look out in case they spotted that indispensable blue rectangle anywhere. Breakfast thankfully was easy to get into; all I had to do was fill out a form providing my name, ID number, and the reason I did not have my card at the moment.

The rest of the morning was uneventful, I was still card-less at lunch. I came into the dining hall at rush hour, prepared to fill out the same form as at the previous meal. I did not get off so easily. Although it was the same man who was swiping cards before, I must not have been recognized or something had changed in the last few hours because I was not allowed entry. Then man would not let me fill in the missing card sheet! With at least 20 people already behind me in line, I told him that my card was still missing and that there was nothing else I could do. He told me to take it up with the supervisor at the dining hall, because he had been told that no one without a card was allowed to be let it in. As I suddenly grew more frustrated the girl behind me spoke up and told the man that she would use a guest pass to let me in. I was shocked. The man still scolded me and said to the girl that it was fine to let me in this once, but I would not be able to get away with that for long. She said that it did not matter, that it was fine and repeated that she would just swipe me in anyway. I did not know what to say. A complete stranger just did me a huge favor and I had absolutely no one way of returning it. I was speechless, but thanked her for about a full minute and gave her the biggest smile I could muster. What else was there to do?

The rule of reciprocity (from Cialdini’s six principles of influence) explains that a person will feel obligated to reciprocate when someone else gives them something. A study done on reciprocity was conducted by Regan in 1971, in which he measured how many raffle tickets a subject would buy from a confederate if they were either offered a Coke by the confederate himself, the experimenter, or were not offered one at all. The scene was set up so that the confederate and the subject were waiting around supposedly for an experiment to start. The subject was offered (or not) a Coke and then was later asked by the confederate if the subject would like to buy a raffle ticket. Results showed that those who were given a Coke by the confederate bought two to three times more raffle tickets than those subjects in other conditions. Some other common examples of the rule are getting a free lunch hosted by a politician and then later voting for that candidate, or going into Starbucks just to get a cup of water but then feeling obliged to buy some type of coffee beverage.

Reciprocity is not necessarily a conscious decision. People can feel the need to reciprocate without actually being aware of those feelings. I do not know anyone who thinks to himself or herself, Oh, I must reciprocate because he did something for me. I must do something back that will benefit him. Instead, individuals are probably thinking, Wow that was really nice of him to do me that favor. I should find a way to return the favor and do something kind, too.

What happens when you know you cannot return the favor? Like the day the stranger treated me to lunch? At that point, there was no way I could swipe her into lunch because I did not even have my card and she has her own meal plan anyway. I suppose there are many things I could do, like make a card or give her some kind of food treat, but that seems to me to be crossing the lines of stranger interactions.

A few questions come to mind: when reciprocity is unattainable, what is the next course of action for an individual? Does that individual go through any kind of stress because they feel like they owe another person? What can a person do to combat any sort of negative affects?