Why do we expect reciprocity for acts of kindness?

[MischievousMonkey]

Scenario: you're sitting on a bench eating some food. A person approaches and looking at your food, says they're hungry.
You split the food in half and give one to the person. Both of you end up eating on the bench.

Next day, that same person is eating on the bench, and hungry as you are, you ask them for some. But they refuse to share any.

Most people would feel some type of way. Slighted, betrayed, we would think we shouldn't have shared with that person in the first place and that we've been taken advantage of.


Why is that? In your opinion, why do we expect reciprocity for our acts of kindness?

 

[Rhapscallion Démone]

Comes down to standards. Some people hold people to the same standards that they hold themselves. Some people hold themselves to higher or lower standards

 

[Taadow]

Scenario: you're sitting on a bench eating some food. A person approaches and looking at your food, says they're hungry.
You split the food in half and give one to the person.

Mm-mm. That's not what had happened.

 

[MischievousMonkey]

Comes down to standards. Some people hold people to the same standards that they hold themselves. Some people hold themselves to higher or lower standards

So are most acts of kindness really selfless or are they just caresses to our ego and reaffirmations that we're up to our standards?

 

[Rhapscallion Démone]

So are most acts of kindness really selfless or are they just caresses to our ego and reaffirmations that we're up to our standards?

I think they're both because I believe most healthy humans have empathetic instincts. That's why we feel guilty about not giving homeless people money and things like that

 

[Nobu]

Because that's how things had to be in order for our tribes and species to survive.

Picture the hunter-gatherer days where certain resources were very hard to come by.

If everyone in the tribe just ate whenever they got a lucky catch and no one shared, then the tribe would probably die off pretty quickly from people going long periods without catching anything and starving to death.

If instead people shared whatever lucky catch they got, then it's more likely that you have at least something to sustain you on a given day, since the odds of someone in the tribe getting a lucky catch is far greater than the odds of one individual (you) getting a lucky catch.

 

[Bruce LeRoy]

If youre doing something out of kindness you shouldn't want or expect anything back.... doing something out of kindness implies that there is no cost or burden in doing said act of kindness.

If you're doing something because u expect something back later on you are not doing it for kindness.

 

[King Khufu]

Some people are just selfish for handouts. Stupid bunch of lowly leeches ready to mooch anything haved but still had never even look out back.

 

[WaveCapsByOscorp™]

Because both people were in need and only one person seemed to recognize that...

 

[Remote]

Just pay it forward and stop being a bytch.

 

[King Khufu]

Picture the hunter-gatherer days where certain resources were very hard to come by.

 

[StarClout]

 

[Blankthawtz]

off topic.....not ashamed to say Lauren Hill taught me that word....

 

[Here Comes the Pain]

It's called self respect & showing gratitude.

 

[KneeGrow.]

Golden Rule shyt.