Costly but worthless gifts facilitate courtship

Abstract

What are the characteristics of a good courtship gift? We address this question by modelling courtship as a sequential game. This is structured as follows: the male offers a gift to a female; after observing the gift, the female decides whether or not to accept it; she then chooses whether or not to mate with the male. In one version of the game, based on human courtship, the female is uncertain about whether the male intends to stay or desert after mating. In a second version, there is no paternal care but the female is uncertain about the male's quality. The two versions of the game are shown to be mathematically equivalent. We find robust equilibrium solutions in which mating is predominantly facilitated by an ‘extravagant’ gift which is costly to the male but intrinsically worthless to the female. By being costly to the male, the gift acts as a credible signal of his intentions or quality. At the same time, its lack of intrinsic value to the female serves to deter a ‘gold-digger’, who has no intention of mating with the male, from accepting the gift. In this way, an economically inefficient gift enables mutually suitable partners to be matched.

The Currency of Reciprocity: Gift Exchange in the Workplace

“…Several scholars have argued that people can use gifts to signal their willingness to cooperate in future relationships (see Camerer 1988;Carmichael and MacLeod 1997;Bolle 2001;and Sozou and Seymour 2005). According to these models, gifts should be costly to the donor and have little value for the recipient.…”

Commitment signals in friendship and romantic relationships

“…Game theoretic analyses have shown that a particular kind of gift may serve as an effective commitment signal (Bolle, 2001;Camerer, 1988;Sozou & Seymour, 2005). The gift must not be too valuable to the recipient, lest the gift-giver become vulnerable to exploitation (e.g., by "gold diggers").…”

Building Trust—One Gift at a Time

“…However, historically gifts were also used to signal intent between two parties attempting to form a transaction [48,49] and thus served as building stones of relationships by strengthening trust [50][51][52][53][54][55][56]. This leads to an important question: What is trust?…”