Expectations of Reciprocal Generosity Are Specific to Equal Relationships

When someone acts generously, what expectations does this create? Classic theories and experiments emphasize reciprocity: the idea that generosity will be returned by the recipient. Yet daily-life and ethnographic observations often show a different pattern: generosity sets a precedent, leading people to expect the same person to be generous again. Across six online behavioral experiments (total N = 599 U.S. adults) using third-party vignette judgments and first-person incentivized economic games, we test when generosity creates expectations of reciprocation versus a precedent. We found that people expected reciprocity only in equal or symmetric relationships. Otherwise, they expected generosity to continue from the same actor. These expectations generalized across roles, contexts, and cost structures. Taken together, the results suggest that classic evidence on reciprocity and turn-taking may capture expectations among strangers or equals, but not the wider set of relationships that structure much of social life.