Making it too obviously transactional is usually bad, because that suggests that you’re very carefully keeping score. It means you’re envisaging a short-term relationship where every negotiation restarts from zero. This can be read as slightly hostile, unless your relationship is already quite distant and likely to remain that way.
Whereas a more indirect exchange suggests a longer-term relationship where one side or the other can occasionally “run a tab” for a while. Doing favors without worrying about the exact balance says that you’re the kind of person who does favors and who is willing to hear people out when they need it, which is more valuable than being someone who keeps an exact balance at all times.
This is presumably why the Japanese compensation ettiquette I linked elsewhere in the thread kept empathizing things like sincerity, apologies, and clearly indicating that the money was intend as a symbol of your feelings (and not something which exactly balanced out the original offense).
But all this stuff gets mediated by culture. One of the things I have always loved about anthropology is trying to figure out how mostly universal principles actually manifest in a specific culture.
Whereas a more indirect exchange suggests a longer-term relationship where one side or the other can occasionally “run a tab” for a while. Doing favors without worrying about the exact balance says that you’re the kind of person who does favors and who is willing to hear people out when they need it, which is more valuable than being someone who keeps an exact balance at all times.
No, this is the wrong way to think about it. Allowing people to run a tab is a signal of trust, which in turn signals cooperativeness. If you’re interacting with a person who feels the need to do close accounting of the tab, that’s a sign they expect you to defect otherwise, which is in turn a sign that they’ll defect.
Making it too obviously transactional is usually bad, because that suggests that you’re very carefully keeping score. It means you’re envisaging a short-term relationship where every negotiation restarts from zero. This can be read as slightly hostile, unless your relationship is already quite distant and likely to remain that way.
Whereas a more indirect exchange suggests a longer-term relationship where one side or the other can occasionally “run a tab” for a while. Doing favors without worrying about the exact balance says that you’re the kind of person who does favors and who is willing to hear people out when they need it, which is more valuable than being someone who keeps an exact balance at all times.
This is presumably why the Japanese compensation ettiquette I linked elsewhere in the thread kept empathizing things like sincerity, apologies, and clearly indicating that the money was intend as a symbol of your feelings (and not something which exactly balanced out the original offense).
But all this stuff gets mediated by culture. One of the things I have always loved about anthropology is trying to figure out how mostly universal principles actually manifest in a specific culture.
No, this is the wrong way to think about it. Allowing people to run a tab is a signal of trust, which in turn signals cooperativeness. If you’re interacting with a person who feels the need to do close accounting of the tab, that’s a sign they expect you to defect otherwise, which is in turn a sign that they’ll defect.