I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the concept of inverted reciprocity. I have no idea if it is a real term or something I made up. Nonetheless, I’ve been using it to describe a style of negotiation that I’ve witnessed time and time again growing up in Alaska.

The concept is pretty simple and can be illustrated by the following story:

Once my best friend’s dad wanted to buy a used car. Now this can often be somewhat challenging in rural Alaska. But it just so happened that my dad was trying to sell our family’s Jeep Wagoneer. If I remember correctly, the Jeep was valued by Blue Book at around $1,500. My friend’s dad offered to pay $2,000, to which my dad countered with $1,000. From there they both negotiated in the opposite direction from what you might expect until they reached a fair price. 

The reason for this inverted reciprocation is pretty straight forward. When you sell a car in a small Alaskan town, one of two things happens: (1) either everyone sees the new owner driving it around everyday or (2) it breaks down, in which case everyone notices that it is no longer being driven around. Either way the whole town is reminded of the transaction on an on going basis.

It is also worth noting that if your car breaks down in the middle of the winter in Alaska, it can become a very serious situation very quickly. No one wants to be the guy who screwed over the guy who ended up freezing to death. This type of social insurance fosters an extremely high incentive for both the buyer and the seller to not fuck each other over. In short, neither the buyer nor seller knows when the other will be the only person able to get them out of a bind.

It has taken me the better part of the last 8 years (since I left Alaska) to realize that not everyone negotiates this way. Most people seem to understand the importance of taking care of each other. However, it seems much easier to practice taking care of each other when the “environment” constantly reinforces that you should (i.e. you live in a place where people regularly freeze to death). Hopefully what I’m getting at is fairly obvious… every environment necessitates that we take care of each other. It’s just that some environments make it more apparent than others. But that alone should never excuse our actions toward a fellow human being.