Have you ever feel the urge to return a favor back from someone who has done a good deed to you at some point of your life? That is basically the theory and principle behind one of the oldest evolutionary trait of our ancestors that let them to evolve to what we are now, known as Reciprocity. It is one of the few adaptations of our ancestors to survive in a while during the rise of mankind. As time goes on, and as the human brain develop and understand hostile or bad behavior, the early humans have created tribes and groups to survive on the harsh environment of the wild in the past. Generally speaking, playing and living around fellow humans have a higher chance of surviving and having an offspring during those harsh times. In theory at least, this provides us an unspoken rule to play by the social norms and incentivizes maintaining relationships with other people.
Now how does reciprocity live up in the contemporary times? When the world becomes connected now more than ever and also society becomes self-sustaining. In the recent field of Positive Psychology, reciprocity and gratitude worked hand in hand like a puzzle to a piece in having a happier and more grateful life. Positive Psychology is the one of the newest fields of psychology that uses scientific understanding and effective intervention to aid in the achievement of a satisfactory life, and this basically means understanding what makes life worth living.
This is different in Toxic Positivity and the key difference is that reciprocity is all about connections, and toxic positivity is all about achieving results in a process, not understanding what the person feels during times of dismay. As for the reason why Reciprocity feels like a part of life right now and being rejected feels very heartbreaking, humans are naturally social animals and it became a part of our biology.
To sum it up, Reciprocity is basically returning back a favor to someone who has done a good deed to you and it is a part of our biology, and partly explains why rejections painfully hurts us especially in our mental health. Understanding the concept of reciprocity and gratitude can help us maintain healthy relationships with people around us, especially now that we need to maintain our connections despite we cannot physically be with them.
This is the Second Part of the 5 Part Passage by Me (Duk Thonks)
If my friends ever see this post, let us connect more.