The Meme Machine

THE ALTRUISM TRICK 173
If the idea of exchanging goods for taking on memes seems unfamiliar, we
might think of the bartering of memes that goes on all around us. We are used to
the idea of paying for the information we want, by buying books or newspapers,
paying our TV licence, or buying tickets to the cinema, but if people want to
impose their ideas on us then they have to pay to get our attention, like
advertisers and politicians do. I shall return to this in considering the way that
information is put onto the Internet at the cost of the provider, not the user.
All these exchanges could be investigated. Imagine an experiment in which
James expresses some unpopular idea, or solicits people to join his organisation,
or whatever. Among a group of people present, Greg gets up and publicly
agrees with James. Now James should feel obliged to Greg and so be more
likely to act generously towards him than to the others. Such experiments could
find out whether exchanging memes could become a kind of currency like
exchanging goods.
Other experiments might bring together people of opposed viewpoints, or
people who disagree about the right way to do something, and find out what
methods they actually use to change one another’s minds. Studies of attitude
change have often been done where material gain is at stake, such as in
advertising and political persuasion, but this theory predicts that people will, if
given the chance, be more generous to people they are seeking to convince –
even when there is no material gain involved. In addition, there is no point
being generous to people who already agree with you, nor to those whom you
judge as being beyond conversion. The greatest altruism should be shown to
those who are capable of being convinced (Rose 1997).
The effects of reciprocation are a little more complex, however. Imagine the
following experiment. Just two people are involved (though in practice we
would need to repeat it with many pairs). Janet is asked to express her opinion
on some controversial topic while Meg listens in silence. Janet now acts
generously in some way towards Meg (perhaps by buying her a coffee or
offering to help with something). Meg is then asked to say how much she likes
Janet. We should obviously expect that Meg will express greater liking for Janet
when she has been generous towards her than when she has not. Now we give
Meg the chance to say what she thinks about the controversial topic and again
measure her liking for Janet. The theory makes two predictions. The first is
more obvious, that Meg is more likely to express agreement when Janet has
given her something. The second is less so, that expressing agreement acts as a
kind of repayment of the kindness. So we should predict that if Meg now
publicly agrees with Janet (whether that is really her opinion or not) she will