The awareness of "What's in it for me?" is reduced if instead of a narrow reciprocity, people engage in what Lewis Hyde calls "circular" giving. A gives to B who gives to C who gives to D who gives to A. Generosity is eventually recompensed but only after a long delay, and it will not come from the individual to whom one has given. The larger and more complex the society the more likely its people are to practice circular giving that draws in not only friends and acquaintances but total strangers. In a modern society, the circle of giving may be so large that it cannot be encompassed by direct experience.
— Yi-Fu Tuan, Cosmos and Hearth