How Did Reciprocity Evolve in Online Communication? Turnout of Reciprocal Altruism

Abstract

Why do we help strangers on the Internet? Sharing our experience, knowledge, or information does not involve a large investment of energy, yet users often expect to be rewarded for sharing their personal resources. Economics and other disciplines call this type of exchange reciprocal altruism. The present research introduces different types of altruism and then deals with reciprocal altruism. It describes how this form of selflessness can appear in social media. The aim of the research is to create an overview of Hungarian and international research, which is the first step of a long-term, comprehensive research project.

Keywords

• altruism
• reciprocity
• knowledge sharing
• social community