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Reputation, a universal currency for human social interactions.

Manfred Milinski1

  • 1Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, Germany milinski@evolbio.mpg.de.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences
|January 6, 2016
PubMed
Summary

A person's reputation acts like social currency, influencing others to offer help based on past actions. Investing in others, like direct help or charity, builds a positive reputation, attracting future support.

Keywords:
gossipindirect reciprocityreputationsocial dilemmaupdating rule

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Social psychology
  • Behavioral economics

Background:

  • Reciprocity is a key social behavior, encompassing direct and indirect forms.
  • Reputation is dynamically updated within social groups based on observed interactions and gossip.
  • An individual's reputation reflects their history of helping or refusing to help others.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To explore the concept of reputation as a form of social currency.
  • To demonstrate how reputation influences social interactions and attracts help.
  • To test evolutionary theory predictions on fitness-maximizing strategies using human economic experiments.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of decision rules in reciprocity (direct and indirect).
  • Examination of reputation as a dynamic social score.
  • Economic experiments with humans to test evolutionary theory predictions.

Main Results:

  • Reputation significantly impacts an individual's ability to attract help, even from strangers.
  • Costly investments in others (e.g., help, donations) enhance reputation.
  • A known reputation functions analogously to money in facilitating social exchange.

Conclusions:

  • Reputation is a valuable social asset that can be 'spent' to gain assistance.
  • Building a positive reputation through prosocial behavior is a fitness-maximizing strategy.
  • Economic experiments provide empirical support for the role of reputation in social cooperation.