Team Production and Gift Exchange
In all three of the New York Times articles that we read included children in some way or another, so I immediately thought of my family and my brothers, specifically. My family as a team works pretty well and I would give credit to my parents for that. They have tried their best to make things as fair as possible for my two brothers and I as we grew up. In the article, “The Power of Altruism”, David Brooks describes how the likelihood of being kind drops when the act is rewarded. It then becomes an economic transaction, and people feel less guilty for not doing the kind act. When my younger brother and I were both pretty young, we were good about doing things for each other without the impression of receiving anything back. We would often fetch one another a drink if one was heading to the fridge, or changing the channel on TV to something we both enjoyed. Once we got a bit older, I started taking advantage of this. My brother ended up doing a lot more favors, and he realized he...