a few instances to the practice of human sacrifice. On the other hand, the

reciprocity-based, religion-boosting idea of obtaining help from God in

reciprocation for good human behavior has probably been vastly constructive.

 

Overall, both inside and outside religions, it seems clear to me that

Reciprocation Tendency’s constructive contributions to man far outweigh its

destructive effects. In cases of psychological tendencies being used to counter

or prevent bad results from one or more other psychological tendencies—for

instance, in the case of interventions to end chemical dependency—you will

usually find Reciprocation Tendency performing strongly on the constructive

side.

 

And the very best part of human life probably lies in relationships of affection

wherein parties are more interested in pleasing than being pleased—a not

uncommon outcome in display of reciprocate-favor tendency.

 

Before we leave reciprocate-favor tendency, the final phenomenon we will

consider is wide- spread human misery from feelings of guilt. To the extent the

feeling of guilt has an evolutionary base, I believe the most plausible cause is

the mental conflict triggered in one direction by reciprocate- favor tendency

and in the opposite direction by reward superresponse tendency pushing one to

enjoy one hundred percent of some good thing. Of course, human culture has often

greatly boosted the genetic tendency to suffer from feelings of guilt. Most

especially, religious culture has imposed hard-to-follow ethical and devotional

demands on people. There is a charming Irish Catholic priest in my neighborhood