Punishing high contributors can erase the cooperative benefits of punishment.
Evidence
In a recent study, Herrmann et al. (2008) ran a PGG with punishment in 16 comparable participant pools around the world. They observed huge cross-societal variations. In some pools, participants punished high contributors as much as they punished low contributors, whereas in other pools, participants punished only low contributors. In some pools, antisocial punishment was strong enough to remove the cooperation-enhancing effect of punishment. Such behavior completely contradicts the view that the purpose of punishment is to sustain cooperation. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 190
Categorization
- QUESTION: What distinguished the pools that punished high contributors from those that did not? Herrmann et al. found cultural predictors; worth chasing the original study for the societal variables.
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how visible ritual punishment (fumi-e) can backfire or be redirected — antisocial punishment as a mirror of authorities’ enforced norms. — connects to: Punishment functions as negative redistribution to correct prior unfair gains — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 175; Costly punishment sustains cooperation that otherwise decays over repeated rounds. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 171; Antisocial punishment is driven by low contributors’ sense of unfair treatment. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 192 (+1 more)
Related
- Antisocial punishment is driven by low contributors’ sense of unfair treatment. (similarity 0.86)
- People punish free-riders partly to correct inequality, not only to enforce cooperation. (similarity 0.85)
- Some punishment in public goods games is retributive justice-seeking, not cooperation enforcement. (similarity 0.85)
- Some cultures punish cooperators rather than freeriders in economic games (similarity 0.84)
- Costly punishment sustains cooperation that otherwise decays over repeated rounds. (similarity 0.81)
- Punishment scales with the unfairness of the wrongdoing, not with deterrence needs (similarity 0.79)
- In some non-Western societies cooperators rather than freeriders get punished (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Punishment functions as negative redistribution to correct prior unfair gains
#expands(0.85) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 175 - Some cultures punish cooperators rather than freeriders in economic games
#exemplifies(0.82) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 831 - Costly punishment sustains cooperation that otherwise decays over repeated rounds.
#qualifies(0.78) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 171 - Antisocial punishment is driven by low contributors’ sense of unfair treatment.
#expands(0.75) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 192