Reciprocity

SUMMARY: Chapter 9, in Renfrew & Bahn's textbook (Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice), covers the various types of trade and exchange in past societies, and how one may assess it, including different types of interactions (e.g., gift exchange), various scientific techniques (e.g., microscopic examination of materials; trace-element analysis; isotopic analysis), studying material and/or artifact distributions, assessing production and consumption, and analyzing the various means of exchange and interaction.  In my view, this is one of the best college textbooks available, and is invaluable for students, archaeologists, and the public in general, to obtain a top notch overview of approaching and interpreting the archaeological record. UPDATED/REVISED March, 2021, some editing and new formatting, minimal new materials.

This study used a concurrent correlational design to examine associations between three types of motor imitation with objects and three proposed correlates in 32 two- and three-year-old children diagnosed with ASD. Attention-following and fine motor ability were significant, unique correlates of imitation in an observational learning context. Attention-following was a significant correlate of imitation in a direct elicitation context. Social reciprocity was a significant correlate of imitation in an interactive play context. These associations were observed after controlling for general developmental level. Results support previous findings that motor imitation may not reflect a unitary construct for children with ASD and that different skills may underlie the performance of different types of motor imitation. Implications for interventions targeting motor imitation are discussed.

This dissertation explores the usefulness of mycorrhizal fungal networks as a metaphor for community support systems in human societies. The research is intentionally positioned between academic scholarship and activism, practising hope as a discipline, radical care as praxis and decoloniality as a priority. I begin by proposing a liberatory, decolonial approach toward nature that rejects extractivism, with the intention of situating the research field of mycology within a historical and social context. Next, I conduct a literature review of peer-reviewed scientific journals to ascertain the key characteristics of mycorrhizal networks that allow them to support life in forest ecosystems. I then apply the findings of the literature review to a case study of UK-based mutual aid networks in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, I evaluate the strength of the mycorrhizal network metaphor, arguing that it can reveal certain nuances involved in mutual aid work – the messy, worldly realities of care work in practice. Given that the discipline of Science and Technology Studies (STS) analyses social and historical phenomena to inform actions in the present and the future, I further argue that the mycorrhizal network metaphor has the potential to guide future social justice work in STS.

Many advocates of deliberative democracy see in the Internet a new opportunity for the development of public spaces, public spheres, and places where deliberation can take place. An important element of the notion of the public sphere in general and of deliberation specifically, is the quality of the debate. In the past decade, many studies have been conducted to evaluate online discussions in light of the ideal notion of the public sphere. However, a wide gap exists between theoretical approaches and the actual operationalization of such theories for empirical research. In an attempt to bridge this gap we develop a method for examining the extent to which Internet forums meet the normative requirements of rational-critical debate, reciprocity, and reflexivity. The methodological approach consists of a textual analysis of the contributions made to an online forum. The coding scheme presented in this article is based on a case study (UK Online) and guided by the theoretical notions of deliberative democracy.

The URBEX project aims at increasing our knowledge of the spatial dimensions ofurban social exclusion and integration by comparing eleven cities in six countries in Europe. The comparison is made on the basis of a common statistical analysis and the application of a common analytical framework and commonly designed fieldwork. The programme’s focus is on the spatial patterns of exclusion, and on the extent to which concentrations of deprivation create added problems for the development of effective policy responses. The research investigates and compares the extent to which groups
experiencing social exclusion are spatially segregated in different European cities. It also examines whether spatial segregation aggravates exclusion and whether this makes
the task of combating exclusion more difficult. Moreover, it considers the trajectoriesand coping strategies of individuals in a condition of need, how they enter this condition and how they try to cope with and get out of it. Finally, it considers the impact of
different policy initiatives designed to combat exclusion in areas where problems of deprivation and exclusion are concentrated.

Résumé

À la suite de plusieurs scandales d’évasion fiscale, le Congrès américain a adopté en 2010 le Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), législation extraterritoriale imposant à l’ensemble des institutions financières étrangères (IFE) de communiquer à l’administration fiscale américaine (l’IRS) des informations relatives aux comptes détenus à l’étranger par des personnes américaines. Le transfert de ces renseignements étant susceptible d’être prohibé par les droits nationaux, les États-Unis ont conclu des accords bilatéraux (avec la France en 2014) afin d’autoriser les institutions financières de les collecter et communiquer. Les IFEs doivent depuis identifier les personnes américaines sur la base « d’indices d’américanité », dont le lieu de naissance aux États-Unis. Le système fiscal américain étant l’un des seuls où les revenus mondiaux sont taxés sur le fondement de la nationalité (citizenship-based taxation), le FATCA a ainsi ciblé des personnes nées « par accident » aux États-Unis, de parents étrangers, et qui sont nationaux et résidents fiscaux d’autres États. Ces « américains accidentels » ont été subitement confrontés à des situations kafkaïennes, certaines institutions financières refusant des clients présentant des indices d’américanité, d’autres exigeant que ces personnes se mettent en conformité avec leurs obligations réglementaires et fiscales au regard du droit américain ou prouvent qu’elles ne sont pas américaines. La combinaison du FATCA, de la citizenship-based taxation et d’un droit du sol pour ce qui concerne l’acquisition automatique de la nationalité américaine ont ainsi fait du FATCA un dispositif à portée extraterritoriale sans précédent qui affecte directement et sur une très large échelle un nombre significatif de personnes qui n’ont plus de lien avec les États-Unis. Cette extraterritorialité suscite des questionnements du point de vue du droit international et il apparaît aussi que le FATCA est un dispositif juridiquement fragile. Il soulève en effet de sérieuses interrogations quant à sa compatibilité avec le droit à la vie privée et le droit européen de la protection des données personnelles. Il génère par ailleurs des discriminations fondées sur la nationalité vraie ou supposée difficilement justifiables.
Si la mise en œuvre de ce dispositif est susceptible d’être contestée devant les juridictions par les personnes affectées, il appelle néanmoins, une réaction plus large de la part de la part des autorités françaises et de l’Union européenne, en particulier lorsque l’on constate que les accords bilatéraux ne sont pas appliqués de manière réciproque par les États-Unis.

Summary

As a result of several tax evasion scandals, the US Congress enacted in 2010 the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), an extraterritorial statute imposing on all foreign financial institutions (FFIs) the obligation to report to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) information about financial accounts held by US persons abroad. Since the direct transfer of data could be prohibited by foreign laws, the US concluded several bilateral agreements with other States (with France in 2014) so as to allow FFIs to collect and transfer the information required by FATCA. Within this framework, FFIs must identify US persons on the basis of several « US indicia », among them a US place of birth. The US system of income taxation being one of the few based on nationality (citizenship-based taxation), FATCA has also targeted persons « accidentally » born in the US to non-US parents and also nationals and resident for tax purposes of other States. These « accidental Americans » have been suddenly confronted to Kafkaesque situations : some financial institutions refusing clients with US indicia, other requiring a certificate of loss of US nationality or full compliance with US tax and regulatory requirements. The combination of FATCA, citizenship-based taxation and the automatic acquisition of US nationality by virtue of jus soli have turned FATCA into an unprecedented extraterritorial apparatus directly hurting on a very large scale a significant number of persons no longer having any links with the US. This extraterritorial reach raises concerns from an international law perspective and FATCA also has other legal weaknesses. It raises indeed many issues as to its compatibility with the right to privacy and European standards on personal data protection. FATCA also generates discriminations based on nationality (true or alleged) that seem difficult to justify. While the implementation of FATCA could eventually be challenged before domestic courts, it also requires a broader response from French and EU authorities since theUS does not apply bilateral agreements on a reciprocal basis.

Although reciprocity is fundamental to all social orders, management research offers few reviews of the concept’s theoretical origins and current applications. To help bridge this gap, we elucidate the dominant understandings of reciprocity, ask which areas of research emerge from them, and explore how they interconnect. Our bibliometric methodology detects four clusters of management research on reciprocity. Across these clusters, authors subscribe mainly to substantialist ontology, marginalize morally oriented motives consistent with relational ontology, and largely assume that benefit-oriented motives underlie reciprocity. We outline the advantages of a moral-oriented relationalist concept of reciprocity and discuss potential areas for its development in management research.

Die Sache der Reziprozität findet sich in alltäglichen Phänomenen wie dem des Grüßens und des Sich-Verabschiedens, des Dankens und des Schenkens. Um sie auf den Begriff zu bringen, wird ihr in diesem Lehrbuch zunächst exemplarisch nachgespürt, indem Protokolle der alltäglichen Phänomene mit der Objektiven Hermeneutik analysiert werden. So wird ein erster Begriff struktureller Reziprozität entwickelt. Mit diesem Begriff im Gepäck wird sodann eine Reise durch die Explikationen von Reziprozität durch M. Mauss, C. Lévi-Strauss und M. Hénaff unternommen. Sie entwickeln anhand ethnographischen Materials und philosophischer Reflexionen Begriffe von Gabe und generalisiertem Tausch. Diese Begrifflichkeit wird nach einer Re-Analyse des Materials und nach argumentativer Überprüfung der Reflexionen mit den zuvor gewonnenen Erkenntnissen konfrontiert. So wird ein empirisch gesättigter und theoretisch plausibler Begriff der strukturellen Reziprozität gewonnen. Im Verlauf der Darstellung wird immer wieder auf leicht zugängliche Phänomene hingewiesen, die den Lesern des Lehrbuchs Forschungsmöglichkeiten zur Prüfung und Anreicherung der Argumentation bieten.

Resumen: El autointerés constituye el principal postulado de la teoría económica ortodoxa. Se trata de una perspectiva que ancla sus raíces en el egoísmo psicológico del siglo xvii, que se abre paso en el pensamiento económico a través de los trabajos de autores como Bernard Mandeville y Joseph Butler durante el siglo xviii, y que encuentra su lugar en la ciencia económica con la revolución marginalista y la posterior emergencia de la escuela neoclásica a lo largo de la segunda mitad del siglo xix. Sin embargo, la teoría de juegos, en su versión tradicional, evolutiva y neuronal, lleva décadas mostrando una realidad comportamental del agente económico motivacionalmente heterogénea y moralmente comprometida. Por ello, el objetivo del presente estudio será doble. Por un lado, mostrar cómo nace, concreta y desarrolla la perspectiva egoísta para la economía, y, por otro, dilucidar cuál es la perspectiva comportamental que subyace de los últimos estudios neuroeconómicos.

The author in her article investigates the rules, norms and practices of gift-giving at weddings in Ghimeș (Romania). She presents local people’s experiences about gift exchange at weddings and the way they interpret the process of gift giving and reciprocation, what calculations precede the compilation of guest lists, what factors are taken into consideration when people accept or reject wedding invitation and in what way they calculate the proper sum of money to be given as gift to the young couple. The return of gifts does not take place automatically in each case, the indebted party is not always asked to reciprocate, and not every indebted guest accepts invitation and returns the gift. The author has reconsidered the local norms of gift-giving at weddings relying upon Marcel Mauss’ model of gift exchange (1925). She wondered to what extent this model elaborated on premodern societies can be applied to societies in the 21st century. She observed gift giving at weddings on her
fi eld site in Ghimeș between 2007 and 2016, and points out that beyond the trinity of giving, accepting and reciprocating fixed by Mauss, some other factors also have to be taken into consideration as not all practices and norms of local gift exchange at weddings can be described with these three acts, which might call for a supplementation and further elaboration of the model.

El análisis comparado de la cooperación contribuye al entendimiento tanto de sus orígenes evolutivos como de los mecanismos próximos involucrados en dicho fenómeno. Esta revisión se centra en estudios sobre cooperación en perros domésticos. Para ello se definieron conceptos relacionados con la cooperación, se describieron las razones filogenéticas y ontogenéticas que hacen del perro un buen modelo para el estudio de este fenómeno y se hizo una revisión crítica de los trabajos realizados en este campo. Fueron incluidas investigaciones sobre situaciones cooperativas y sobre las habilidades cognitivas involucradas. Se discuten hipótesis sobre los mecanismos próximos de esta habilidad que incluyen elementos emocionales, motivacionales y de aprendizaje asociativo.

Many of the instructional practices that have been advanced as intrinsically motivating are inherent in socio-constructivist learning environments. There is now emerging scientific evidence to explain why interactive learning environments promote the intrinsic motivation to learn. The "two-body" and "second person" approaches have begun to explore the "dark matter" of social neuroscience: the intra- and inter-individual brain dynamics during social interaction. Moreover, studies indicate that when young learners are given expanded opportunities to actively and equitably participate in collaborative learning activities they experienced feelings of well-being, contentment or even excitement. Neuroscience starts demonstrating how this naturally rewarding aspect is strongly associated with the implication of the mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway during social interaction. The production of dopamine reinforces the desire to continue the interaction, and height...

One of the most significant developments in economics over the last decades has been the growth of behavioral economics. It is not a unified theory, but rather a collection of ideas in opposition to the traditional economics (so called mainstream economics, neoclassical or ortodox). The purpose of the paper is to present Adam Smith's theory against a background of different concepts of contemporary behavioral economists. The basic subject of economics as a scientific theory is a human being. Homo sapiens is a creator of econosphere the global economic system consisting of billions of people and organizations which are multiplying achievements of our civilization. Therefore, at the core of any economic theory must be a theory of human behavior. The presented comparative analysis demonstrates an amazing convergence between A.Smith's theory and contemporary behavioral economics. Thus, the article supports opinion that present economics is returning to the roots of eighteen century classical economics. This reversion is supplemented by modern knowledge regarding complex evolutionary systems, psychology and sociology, and supported by the latest technical achievements of neuroeconomics allowing an insight into chemical and physical processes in a human brain. Thanks to that, economics is becoming an experimental science.

Reflecting on the recent book by Marina L. Butovskaya and Victoria V. Rostovtseva, the author discusses altruism and selfishness as preconditions for cooperation of humans in society for collective actions, as a result of which its sociocultural transformations take place. It is argued that the problem of sources of cooperative behavior is by no means the one of strict choice between altruism and selfishness. Cooperation in society is based on a combination of altruism and selfishness in human behavior, with reciprocity of relationships as a connecting link between them. Butovskaya and Rostovtseva’s approach to the problem of the sources of cooperation as the background of social evolution is compared with the theories for which this problem is crucially important, too but solved differently – the collective action theory and collective acceptance theory of institutions.

Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb observes Laura’s approach to the therapist from a phenomenological, aesthetic, field oriented perspective. She looks at how (rather than what) the client tells the therapist her problem, her expectation of change involved in her asking for help, her creative adjustment to traumatic situations, and finally at the feeling of the therapist
as aesthetic diagnostic tool which orients the treatment. The author refers to and describes the specific therapeutic path in case of abusive trauma and focuses on the feeling of the specific therapist (the aesthetic relational knowledge - ARK) and on the reciprocity that emerges in the therapeutic meeting. The therapeutic glance switches from the client to the reciprocity that is created in the therapeutic relation.

While Simone de Beauvoir's theory of alterity has been the topic of much discussion within Beauvoir scholarship, feminist theory, and social and political philosophy, it has not commonly been a reference point for those working within ethics. However , Beauvoir develops a novel view that those concerned with the ethical import of respect for others should consider seriously, especially those working within the Levinasian tradition. I claim that Beauvoir distinguishes between two forms of otherness: namely, existential alterity and sociopolitical alterity. While sociopolit-ical alterity is a contingent and surmountable form of otherness that results from oppression of individuals and groups, existential alterity is a necessary feature of the human condition that discloses the foreignness of the other as a freedom. Out of this view of existential alterity, I argue, Beauvoir develops an ethic of asymmetrical reciprocity. In contrast with Levinas, who dismisses reciprocity as a symmetrical or reversible model of relation that minimizes difference, Beauvoir promulgates a view of reciprocity that does not fall into the problems that Levinas diagnoses. Moreover, asymmetrical reciprocity more successfully figures the ethical relation to the other than the absolute asymmetry one finds in Levinas, which becomes evident through revisiting Levinas's account of eros and contrasting it with that of Beauvoir.

Drawing on evolutionary psychology, social exchange styles were conceptualized in terms of two dimensions of individual differences in approaching exchange relationships: Benefit-seeking and cost-vigilance. In Study 1, a principal components analysis of the Social Exchange Styles Questionnaire (SESQ) in 156 undergraduates confirmed the presence of two dimensions that were very similar to the expected dimensions: Equitable alliance building (EAB) and vigilant alliance management (VAM). The SESQ scales showed good internal consistency and construct validity. Multiple regressions confirmed that social exchange styles were distinct from other personality variables. In Study 2, multilevel modelling conducted on 45 small work groups demonstrated that EAB positively predicted members' subjective performance, while VAM positively predicted objective performance. Theoretical questions and future research directions are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

El -nuevo- modelo económico boliviano o Modelo Económico Social Comunitario Productivo (MESCP) es el modelo económico adoptado oficialmente por el Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia desde la promulgación de la NCPE en el 2009. Sus fundamentos microeconómicos no difieren de aquellos postulados en una economía liberal por lo que la economía boliviana da una continuidad al esquema de libre-intercambio, en particular no se cuestiona el principio utilitarista. En este ensayo se trata de mostrar que la inclusión del principio de la reciprocidad daría lugar a un modelo económico no-capitalista, mejor adaptado a las condiciones y necesidades del pueblo boliviano.

Prior research has yielded mixed findings regarding the relation of ostracism to prosocial behavior, with studies indicating ostracism leads people to become less prosocial, more prosocial, or that prosocial behavior is unaffected by workplace ostracism. By conceptualizing prosocial behavior at work as a social dilemma, we hypothesized that whether or not individuals reduce prosocial behaviors following ostracism can be understood by how individuals manage the conflict between the immediate temptation to treat others poorly and the long-term benefits of not giving in to such temptations. Across three studies – a scenario (Study 1), experimental (Study 2), and field study on employed adults (Study 3) – we find support for the hypothesis that individuals who are less (vs. more) oriented towards future outcomes engage in less prosocial behaviors with others who have ostracized them during prior interactions. We discuss both the practical and theoretical implications of these findings.

What goes on in the diagnostic interview, when considered not only as a clinical tool but also as a specific kind of interpersonal encounter? Might research on interpersonal understanding shed any light on the diagnostic interview? In the following, we address these questions by drawing on recent discussions about second-person and third-person relations. The chapter is structured as follows. In Sect. 4.2, we describe some peculiarities of the diagnostic interview and highlight how it involves
a complex interplay between different sources of diagnostically relevant information. In Sect. 4.3, we turn to research on interpersonal understanding. We reconstruct and critically assess some recent discussions about second-person relations, and present our own take on this notion. In Sect. 4.4, we elaborate on a conceptualization
of second-person relations which foregrounds the roles of reciprocity and
communication. In Sect. 4.5, we return to the diagnostic interview and assess the implications of our discussion.

Radical geographers have been preoccupied with Marxism for four decades, largely ignoring an earlier anarchist tradition that thrived a century before radical geography was claimed as Marxist in the 1970s. When anarchism is considered, it is misused as a synonym for violence or derided as a utopian project. Yet it is incorrect to assume anarchism as a 'project', which instead reflects Marxian thought. Anarchism is more appropriately considered a protean process that perpetually unfolds through the insurrectionary geographies of the everyday and the prefigurative politics of direct action, mutual aid, and voluntary association. Unlike Marxism’s stages of history and revolutionary imperative, which imply an end-state, anarchism appreciates the dynamism of the social world. In staking a renewed anarchist claim for radical geography, I attend to the divisions between Marxism and anarchism as two alternative socialisms, wherein the former positions equality alongside an ongoing flirtation with authoritarianism while the latter maximizes egalitarianism and individual liberty by considering them as mutually reinforcing. Radical geographers would do well to reengage anarchism as there is a vitality to this philosophy that is missing from Marxian analyses that continue to rehash ideas–such as vanguardism and a proletarian dictatorship–that are long past their expiration date.

This article identifies a seminal instance of Indigenous influence on Western thought. It does so by revealing a form of idea power exercised by Indigenous Americans: the power to transmit messages through the medium of people who came to meet and learn from them. In 1894, the Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw people of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, invited the anthropologist Franz Boas to take part in their system of Indigenous governance, the potlatch. At a series of dances and feasts, Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw leaders performed the notion of transformation, offering a dynamic vision of humanity as a single, varied, and constantly changing global community. Guided by an Indigenous intellectual, George Hunt, the Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw civilized Boas into a new way of seeing. They turned him from a static concept of culture, focused on the differences between groups of people, toward a dynamic concept of culture, focused on the universality of global experience—an experience of diversity. To identify such episodes of Indigenous influence, scholars must open a new archive—the vast corpus of Indigenous thought and action compiled by anthropologists—and begin writing a truly global history of ideas.

We investigate how the intentionality of investors or trustees' actions affects third party compensation and punishment interventions after a trust game. Investors and trustees are randomly assigned to conditions where they either make intentional choices or their choices are made by a random machine. Overall, we find that lack of reciprocity is punished more than lack of trust, and third parties exhibit strong preferences for compensation over punishment. We find that only the punishment choice is affected by the intentionality of parties' actions, whereas compensation occurs in all conditions, whether lack of trust or reciprocity has been intentional or unintentional.

Anarchism and geography have a long and disjointed history, characterized by towering peaks of intensive intellectual engagement and low troughs of ambivalence and disregard. This paper traces a genealogy of anarchist geographies back to the modern development of anarchism into a distinct political philosophy following the Enlightenment. The initial rise of geographers’ engagement with anarchism occurred at the end of the nineteenth-century, owing to Élisée Reclus and Peter Kropotkin, who developed an emancipatory vision for geography in spite of the discipline’s enchantment with imperialism at that time. The realpolitik of the war years in the first half of the twentieth-century and the subsequent quantitative revolution in geography represent a nadir for anarchist geographies. Yet anarchism was never entirely abandoned by geographical thought and the counterculture movement of the 1970s gave rise to radical geography, which included significant interest in anarchist ideas. Unfortunately another low occurred during the surge of neoliberal politics in the 1980s and early 1990s, but hope springs eternal, and from the late 1990s onward the anti-globalization movement and DIY culture have pushed anarchist geographies into more widespread currency. In reviewing the literature, I hope to alert readers to the ongoing and manifold potential for anarchist geographies to inform both geographical theory and importantly, to give rise to more practice-based imperatives where building solidarities, embracing reciprocity, and engaging in mutual aid with actors and communities beyond the academy speaks to the ‘freedom of geography’ and its latent capacity to shatter its own disciplinary circumscriptions.

This paper analyses the implication of behaviour in realm of selective targeting under enabling state to understand young third country immigrants' employment-related transition from welfare to work in Austria, Finland and Czech Republic. Existing research pointed the economic meltdown that began in the 2008 destroyed the economic security and job prospect of many millions that has put policy makers under intense budgetary pressure and fiscal burden to selective target social benefits in industrialized and transitional countries of the former socialist block. Selective targeting emphasizes a mode of operation that defines a pattern of policy approach assuming that welfare expenditure on the basis of individual need and reductive categorization of eligibility reduce "leakages" in social assistance programs, ease the burgeoning difficulties, and activate job seekers. Yet, selective targeting embodies huge administrative tab associated with transaction cost of conducting means test and monitoring eligibility, involves taking benefits away from the people, and also raise the threshold of eligibility. Although there seem to exist some common understanding that the main tool to solve fiscal burden and budgetary deficit is to increase policymakers' mode to targeting benefits, there have not been enough studies in CEE countries, Western European Countries and Nordic countries explaining the implication of behaviour in realm of selective targeting under enabling state to understand young third country immigrants' employment-related transition from welfare to work in Austria, Finland and Czech Republic. Based on a qualitative cross-country case-oriented research approach with fewer country comparisons, documents, observation, and scholarly text are collected and analyse with document and content analysis techniques to fill in this gap. The findings show contractual tasks, obligations, and sanction regulative tool, is a major perceived influence in enabling state selective targeting administration governance which raises access to benefits threshold that may impair equity and efficiency in targeting benefits when looking at issues such as employment-related transition of young third country immigrants and socioeconomically minority groups in selective targeting setting. The study demonstrates certain means-tested pro-poor administrative governance similarities, but dissimilarities from the countries institutional approach. This is relevant to sustainable public finance in contemporary fluid society with scarce resources that may not only impair minority, but create stigma, jeopardize belongings and the economy.

Economists and biologists have proposed a distinction between two mechanisms – “strong” and “weak” reciprocity – that may explain the evolution of human sociality. Weak reciprocity theorists emphasize the benefits of long-term cooperation and the use of low-cost strategies to deter free-riders. Strong reciprocity theorists, in contrast, claim that cooperation in social dilemma games can be sustained by costly punishment mechanisms, even in one-shot and finitely repeated games. To support this claim, they have generated a large body of evidence concerning the willingness of experimental subjects to punish uncooperative free- riders at a cost to themselves. In this article, I distinguish between a “narrow” and a “wide” reading of the experimental evidence. Under the narrow reading, punishment experiments are just useful devices to measure psychological propensities in controlled laboratory conditions. Under the wide reading, they replicate a mechanism that supports cooperation also in “real-world” situations outside the laboratory. I argue that the wide interpretation must be tested using a combination of laboratory data and evidence about cooperation “in the wild.” In spite of some often-repeated claims, there is no evidence that cooperation in the small egalitarian societies studied by anthropologists is enforced by means of costly punishment. Moreover, studies by economic and social historians show that social dilemmas in the wild are typically solved by institutions that coordinate punishment, reduce its cost, and extend the horizon of cooperation. The lack of field evidence for costly punishment suggests important constraints about what forms of cooperation can or cannot be sustained by means of decentralised policing.