Universität zu Köln

Molleman, Lucas, Kolle, Felix ORCID: 0000-0003-4036-8566, Starmer, Chris ORCID: 0000-0001-7705-0127 and Gachter, Simon ORCID: 0000-0002-7182-8505 (2019). People prefer coordinated punishment in cooperative interactions. Nat. Hum. Behav., 3 (11). S. 1145 - 1154. NEW YORK: NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP. ISSN 2397-3374

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Abstract

Human groups can often maintain high levels of cooperation despite the threat of exploitation by individuals who reap the benefits of cooperation without contributing to its costs(1-4). Prominent theoretical models suggest that cooperation is particularly likely to thrive if people join forces to curb free riding and punish their non-contributing peers in a coordinated fashion(5). However, it is unclear whether and, if so, how people actually condition their punishment of peers on punishment behaviour by others. Here we provide direct evidence that many people prefer coordinated punishment. With two large-scale decision-making experiments (total n = 4,320), we create minimal and controlled conditions to examine preferences for conditional punishment and cleanly identify how the punishment decisions of individuals are impacted by the punishment behaviour by others. We find that the most frequent preference is to punish a peer only if another (third) individual does so as well. Coordinated punishment is particularly common among participants who shy away from initiating punishment. With an additional experiment we further show that preferences for conditional punishment are unrelated to well-studied preferences for conditional cooperation. Our results highlight the importance of conditional preferences in both positive and negative reciprocity, and they provide strong empirical support for theories that explain cooperation based on coordinated punishment.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Molleman, Lucas UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Kolle, Felix UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0003-4036-8566 UNSPECIFIED Starmer, Chris UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0001-7705-0127 UNSPECIFIED Gachter, Simon UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-7182-8505 UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-129309
DOI:	10.1038/s41562-019-0707-2
Journal or Publication Title:	Nat. Hum. Behav.
Volume:	3
Number:	11
Page Range:	S. 1145 - 1154
Date:	2019
Publisher:	NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
Place of Publication:	NEW YORK
ISSN:	2397-3374
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language ALTRUISTIC PUNISHMENT; STRONG RECIPROCITY; EVOLUTION; ENFORCEMENT; DEFECTORS; INSTITUTIONS; EMOTIONS; BENEFITS; GOVERN; NORMS Multiple languages Psychology, Biological; Multidisciplinary Sciences; Neurosciences; Psychology, Experimental Multiple languages
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/12930