The Meme Machine

172 THE MEME MACHINE
do the task themselves. Experiments could then go on to find out just how best
to manipulate liking so as to produce the most effective imitation. If the same
manipulations affect simple imitation of actions as well as persuasion and
agreement with beliefs, this would be suggestive that a similar process is going
on in both. I have also assumed that altruistic behaviour makes people more
likeable. This may seem too obvious to need testing, but we could use similar
experiments to test the main consequence of this – that is, that acting
altruistically will induce people to imitate you. If these predictions were not
born out the entire basis of this kind of meme-drive altruism would be
undermined.
The outcome of such experiments might be complicated by the effects of the
‘reciprocation rule’. It is well known in social psychology that people feel
obliged to repay any kindness shown to them, and feel obligated if they do not
(Cialdini 1995). This tendency is culturally widespread and probably related to
the fact that aid from rich to poor countries is not always well received
(Moghaddam et al. 1993). Presumably, reciprocity stems from our evolved use
of reciprocal altruism. Now, if an observer in one of our experiments has a
kindness done to them they may feel obligated to the model – an unpleasant
feeling which might disincline them to like the model and so complicate the
issue. The most interesting outcome from the memetic point of view would be if
imitating the altruist (i.e. taking on their memes) acted as a kind of reciprocation.
By this I mean that one person could ‘pay back’ a kindness by taking on the
other person’s ideas.
This effect can be seen to follow from a combination of the ‘reciprocation
rule’ which derives from reciprocal altruism, and Allison’s beneficent norm ‘Be
good to those who imitate you’. According to this rule, if A imitates B, B
should now feel obliged to A. So, for example, not only does the professor want
to be nice to her students but all of us should be kinder to people who agree with
us, or take on our ideas, or imitate us in other ways. If the process works both
ways then if C gives D a gift, D will feel obligated to C and may pay back the
obligation by agreeing with C (or taking on her memes in some other way). In
ordinary life we may be seeing this in the tendency of guests to agree with their
host’s ideas, or of people in subordinate positions to agree with those who have
power over them, or in the tricks used by religions that I discussed above.
Finally, this could lead to people trading off their obligations by bartering goods
against imitation in all possible combinations. So, for example, the guest who
brings a fine present should feel under less obligation to agree with the host than
one who does not.