Abstract: This paper proposes and tests respect-based reciprocity: people are more willing to support an actor when they believe that actor holds them in higher regard. I model perceived respect as a second-order belief about one's type, and treat respect from different sources as partially substitutable. This implies that the response to one actor's regard is stronger when outside respect is scarce. I test these predictions in two controlled experiments and a political application. The first experiment isolates perceived respect from competing explanations and shows that it substantially increases directed support. The second experimentally varies outside respect and finds that scarcity amplifies this response. Using nationally representative survey data from the 2016 U.S. election, I show that perceived candidate respect predicts vote choice conditional on demographics, partisanship, ideology, and policy views, and that this relationship is stronger among voters with lower predicted occupational prestige. These findings provide an individual-level mechanism for recognition-gap accounts of political realignment. I then develop implications for gift exchange, incentive pay, control and delegation, and political communication, showing how the respect conveyed by these actions can alter responses to them, including when incentives backfire or negative out-group messaging makes favorable regard more credible.

For Information contact angela.baldassarre@unibocconi.it or giulia.zenoni@unibocconi.it