Abstract
Initiated by the seminal work of Fehr and Fischbacher (Evolution and Human Behavior (2004)), a large body of research has shown that people often take punitive actions towards norm violators even when they are not directly involved in transactions. This paper shows in an experimental setting that this behavioral finding extends to a situation where a pair of individuals jointly decides how strong a third-party punishment to impose. It also shows that this punishment behavior is robust to the size of social distance within pairs. These results lend useful insight since decisions in our everyday lives and also in courts are often made by teams.
Highlights
This paper experimentally explored whether third-party punishment is frequently observed for the case of pairs, as is the case for individuals
The experiment data reveal that pairs’ altruistic punishment is common and similar in size to that of third-party individuals. This finding is useful considering that third-party punishment can be taken by individuals and by teams in the real world
The experiment data, imply a possible negative answer to this question: irrespective of the format, cooperation may not evolve if third parties exhibit similar levels of punitive inclinations consistently over time
Summary
Academic Editors: Marc Willinger and Yukihiko Funaki. Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
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