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The Gift has been very influential in anthropology, [3] where there is a large field of study devoted to reciprocity and exchange. [4] It has also influenced philosophers, artists, and political activists, including Georges Bataille, Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, and more recently the work of David Graeber and the theologians John Milbank and Jean-Luc Marion.
The social norm of reciprocity is the expectation that people will respond to each other in similar ways—responding to gifts and kindnesses from others with similar benevolence of their own, and responding to harmful, hurtful acts from others with either indifference or some form of retaliation.
Gift-giving, he argued, was not altruistic (as it supposedly is in our society) but politically motivated for individual gain. Marcel Mauss theorized the impetus for a return as "the spirit of the gift," an idea that has provoked a long debate in economic anthropology on what motivated the reciprocal exchange. [ 1 ]
One example of positive reciprocity is that waitresses who smile broadly or give small gifts to their patrons receive more tips than waitresses who present a minimal smile. [26] [27] Also, free samples are not merely opportunities to taste a product but rather invitations to engage in the rule of reciprocity. Many people find it difficult to ...
An elaborate example of this in a non-market society is the potlatch, where large amounts of personal resources are ceremonially given away to others in the community according to social status, with the tacit expectation that other members of the community would themselves give away large amounts of their own property in the future.
[35]: 4 For example, an animal given as a gift must be eaten, not bred. However, as in the example of the Trobriand armbands and necklaces, this "perishing" may not consist of consumption as such, but of the gift moving on. In other societies, it is a matter of giving some other gift, either directly in return or to another party.
Wider societal terms that do not have a specific sociological nature about them should be added to social concepts in keeping with the WikiProject Sociology scope for the subject. Contents Top
An example of civic engagement, in the form of phone banking. Civic engagement reform arose at the beginning of the 21st century after Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone brought to light changes in civic participation patterns. Putnam argued that despite rapid increases in higher education opportunities that may foster civic engagement ...