Punishment Option Research Articles

Punishment is slower than cooperation or defection in online network games

Punishment serves as a balancing force that dissuades people from acting selfishly, which complements cooperation as an essential characteristic for the prosperity of human societies. Past studies using economic games with two options (cooperation and defection) reported that cooperation decisions are generally faster than defection decisions and that time pressure possibly induces human players to be more intuitive and thus cooperative. However, it is unclear where punishment decisions sit on this time spectrum. Therefore, we recruited human players and implemented two series of online network games with cooperation, defection, and punishment options. First, we find that punishment decisions are slower than cooperation or defection decisions across both game series. Second, we find that imposing experimental time pressure on in-game decisions neither reduces nor increases the frequency of punishment decisions, suggesting that time pressure may not directly interact with the mechanisms that drive players to choose to punish.

The Impact of Cognitive Load on Cooperation and Antisocial Punishment: Insights from a Public Goods Game Experiment.

This paper investigates the impact of cognitive load on the formation and maintenance of cooperation within a public goods game experiment featuring a punishment option. By integrating the experimental designs of prior studies and manipulating cognitive load through the memorization of numbers with varying digits, we reveal that high cognitive load accelerates the breakdown of cooperation, irrespective of the presence of a punishment system. Furthermore, under high cognitive load, participants are more likely to engage in antisocial punishment, while the punishment of free riders remains unaffected. These findings suggest that increased cognitive load depletes the cognitive resources needed for deliberative decision-making, leading to a higher propensity for antisocial punishment. Our study contributes to the literature by demonstrating the significant influence of cognitive load on cooperative behavior and providing new insights into the causes of antisocial punishment.

On the credibility of threats to avoid the deployment of solar geoengineering

AbstractWe analyze how geoengineering in the form of solar radiation management (SRM), associated with the potential of high collateral damages, affects the governance architecture of climate agreements. We investigate under which conditions signatories to a climate agreement can avoid the deployment of SRM and implement a climate agreement on mitigation. We show that a climate agreement with all countries can be stable with the threat to deploy SRM in case a country free-rides. The threat is deterrent if collateral damages are perceived to be sufficiently high (lower threshold), but only credible if those damages are not too high (upper threshold). SRM deployment is the only threat available to signatories if they choose mitigation levels simultaneously with non-signatories (Nash–Cournot scenario). However, if signatories choose mitigation levels before non-signatories (Stackelberg scenario), an additional punishment option arises. Then if collateral damages are sufficiently large, signatories can reduce their mitigation levels and impose a heavier burden on non-signatories that would find it profitable to avoid the deployment of SRM. We show that our results are robust in two analytical frameworks frequently employed in the game-theoretic analysis of international environmental agreements.

Time pressure and deliberation affect moral punishment

The deliberate-morality account implies that moral punishment should be decreased with time pressure and increased with deliberation while the intuitive-morality account predicts the opposite. In three experiments, moral punishment was examined in a simultaneous one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma game with a costly punishment option. The players cooperated or defected and then decided whether or not to punish their partners. In Experiment 1, the punishment decisions were made without or with time pressure. In Experiment 2, the punishment decisions were immediate or delayed by pauses in which participants deliberated their decisions. In Experiment 3, participants were asked to deliberate self-interest or fairness before deciding whether to punish their partners. Different types of punishment were distinguished using the cooperation-and-punishment model. In Experiment 1, time pressure decreased moral punishment. In Experiment 2, deliberation increased moral punishment. So far, the evidence supports the deliberate-morality account. Experiment 3 demonstrates that the effect of deliberation depends on what is deliberated. When participants deliberated self-interest rather than fairness, moral punishment was decreased. The results suggest that unguided deliberation increases moral punishment, but the effects of deliberation are modulated by the type of deliberation that takes place. These results strengthen a process-based account of punishment which offers a more nuanced understanding of the context-specific effect of deliberation on moral punishment than the deliberate-morality account.

Communicating emotions, but not expressing them privately, reduces moral punishment in a Prisoner’s Dilemma game

The existence of moral punishment, that is, the fact that cooperative people sacrifice resources to punish defecting partners requires an explanation. Potential explanations are that people punish defecting partners to privately express or to communicate their negative emotions in response to the experienced unfairness. If so, then providing participants with alternative ways to privately express or to communicate their emotions should reduce moral punishment. In two experiments, participants interacted with cooperating and defecting partners in a Prisoner’s Dilemma game. After each round, participants communicated their emotions to their partners (Experiments 1 and 2) or only expressed them privately (Experiment 2). Each trial concluded with a costly punishment option. Compared to a no-expression control group, moral punishment was reduced when emotions were communicated to the defecting partner but not when emotions were privately expressed. Moral punishment may thus serve to communicate emotions to defecting partners. However, moral punishment was only reduced but far from being eliminated, suggesting that the communication of emotions does not come close to replacing moral punishment. Furthermore, prompting participants to focus on their emotions had undesirable side-effects: Privately expressing emotions diminished cooperation, enhanced hypocritical punishment (i.e., punishment of defecting partners by defecting participants), and induced an unspecific bias to punish the partners irrespective of their actions.

Законодательная охрана хищных птиц и усиление борьбы с нелегальной торговлей ими в Казахстане

Законодательная охрана хищных птиц и усиление борьбы с нелегальной торговлей ими в Казахстане

Punishing Atrocity Crimes in Transitional Contexts: Advancing Discussions on Adequacy of Alternative Criminal Sanctions Using the Case of Colombia.

Criminal trials and proportional prison sentences are generally seen as the most suitable way to deal with perpetrators of atrocity crimes. Notwithstanding, traditionally conceived criminal penalties, such as imprisonment, may discourage active responsibility-taking by offenders, disaffect victims by not meeting their needs and impede meaningful engagement between perpetrators and survivors. Arguably, alternative criminal sanctions may be appropriate punishment even for atrocity crimes when tried in transitional societies. Using the case of Colombia, this article analyses the justifications of punishment for atrocities in transitional contexts and discusses the adequacy of alternative criminal sanctions as penalties for atrocity crimes. It concludes that under certain conditions, alternative sanctions can be a viable punishment option that may promote active responsibility-taking and contribute to repairing harm, reintegrating offenders into the community and (re)constructing relationships while serving expressive rationales.

Letting offenders choose their punishment?

AbstractPunishment menus allow offenders to choose the punishment to which they will be subjected from a set of options. We present several behaviorally informed rationales for why punishment menus may serve as effective deterrents, notably by causing people to refrain from entering a calculative mindset; reducing their psychological reactance; causing them to reconsider the reputational impacts of punishment; and reducing suspicions about whether the act is enforced for rent‐seeking purposes. We argue that punishment menus can outperform the traditional single punishment if these effects can be harnessed properly. Our observations thus constitute a challenge, based on behavioral arguments, to the conventional view that adding (possibly unexercised) punishment options to an existing punishment scheme is unlikely to increase deterrence or welfare. We explain how heterogeneities among individuals can pose problems to designing effective punishment menus and discuss potential solutions. After explaining how punishment menus, if designed and implemented benevolently, can serve socially desirable goals, we caution against their possible misuse by self‐interested governments.

The Effects of Social Distance and Asymmetric Reward and Punishment on Individual Cooperative Behavior in Dilemma Situations.

The behavior decisions in social dilemmas are highlighted in sociological, economic, and social psychological studies. Across two studies, the iterated prisoner’s dilemma is used as a basic paradigm to explore the effects of social distance and asymmetric reward and punishment on an individual’s cooperative behavior. Experiment 1 (N = 80) used a 2 (social distance: intimacy vs. strangeness) × 2 (symmetry of rewards: symmetric rewards vs. asymmetric rewards) within-subject design and demonstrated that when there were only two options, namely, cooperation and defection, cooperative behavior was influenced by social distance and symmetry of rewards, respectively, and the interaction was not significant. Experiment 2 (N = 80) used a 2 (social distance: intimacy vs. strangeness) × 2 (symmetry of punishment: symmetric punishment vs. asymmetric punishment) within-subject design and showed that the cooperative behavior of participants decreased when the punishment option was added, and the two levels of symmetry and asymmetry were set. Specifically, compared with the symmetric punishment group, the asymmetric punishment group was more likely to choose a defection strategy and less likely to use a punishment strategy. Moreover, there was a marginal interaction effect between social distance and symmetry of punishment, and symmetry of punishment was a significant mediator in the relationship between social distance and individual cooperation. Specifically, asymmetric punishment reduced only the cooperation rate (CR) between participants and their friends. In conclusion, in dilemma situations, asymmetric reward did not influence individual cooperative behavior at different social distances, while asymmetric punishment did, because the sense of loss was more likely to awaken an individual’s social comparison motives.

Cognitive load decreases cooperation and moral punishment in a Prisoner\u2019s Dilemma game with punishment option

The present study serves to test whether cooperation and moral punishment are affected by cognitive load. Dual-process theories postulate that moral behavior is intuitive which leads to the prediction that cooperation and moral punishment should remain unaffected or may even increase when cognitive load is induced by a secondary task. However, it has also been proposed that cognitive control and deliberation are necessary to choose an economically costly but morally justified option. A third perspective implies that the effects of cognitive load may depend on the specific processes involved in social dilemmas. In the present study, participants played a simultaneous Prisoner’s Dilemma game with a punishment option. First, both players decided to cooperate or defect. Then they had the opportunity to punish the partners. In the cognitive-load group, cognitive load was induced by a continuous tone classification task while the no-load group had no distractor task. Under cognitive load, cooperation and moral punishment decreased in comparison to the no-load condition. By contrast, hypocritical and antisocial punishment were not influenced by the dual-task manipulation. Increased cognitive load was associated with a bias to punish the partners irrespective of the outcome of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game, suggesting that punishment was applied less purposefully in the cognitive-load condition. The present findings are thus in line with the idea that the availability of cognitive resources does not always have a suppressive effect on moral behaviors, but can have facilitating effects on cooperation and moral punishment.

The effect of options to reward and punish on behavior in bargaining

AbstractWe use a lab experiment to investigate how providing the responder with options to reward and/or punish the proposer postacceptance affects behavior in ultimatum bargaining. We find that the presence of costly reward and punishment options affects behavior of both bargaining parties, even if those instruments are rarely used. Proposers are most generous when responders can both reward and punish, and offer least (even compared to the baseline) when responders can only reward. The likelihood of acceptance by responders, conditional on offer size, increases. The least generous offers have the highest chance of being accepted in the presence of punishment alone, even when punishment is not applied. It appears that the availability of additional instruments changes subjects' perception of the distribution of bargaining power and shifts fairness norms. The results have implications for optimal contract design in posted offer settings, such as decentralized online marketplaces for various tasks.

Moral labels increase cooperation and costly punishment in a Prisoner\u2019s Dilemma game with punishment option

To determine the role of moral norms in cooperation and punishment, we examined the effects of a moral-framing manipulation in a Prisoner’s Dilemma game with a costly punishment option. In each round of the game, participants decided whether to cooperate or to defect. The Prisoner’s Dilemma game was identical for all participants with the exception that the behavioral options were paired with moral labels (“I cooperate” and “I cheat”) in the moral-framing condition and with neutral labels (“A” and “B”) in the neutral-framing condition. After each round of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game, participants had the opportunity to invest some of their money to punish their partners. In two experiments, moral framing increased moral and hypocritical punishment: participants were more likely to punish partners for defection when moral labels were used than when neutral labels were used. When the participants’ cooperation was enforced by their partners’ moral punishment, moral framing did not only increase moral and hypocritical punishment but also cooperation. The results suggest that moral framing activates a cooperative norm that specifically increases moral and hypocritical punishment. Furthermore, the experience of moral punishment by the partners may increase the importance of social norms for cooperation, which may explain why moral framing effects on cooperation were found only when participants were subject to moral punishment.

Promises and Punishment

We study the effect of communication on beliefs, behavior, and efficiency in the context of hold-up problems with a punishment option. We apply a novel behavioral motivation, frustration-dependent anger, that links unmet payoff expectations with the willingness to forgo material payoffs to punish others, and we conjecture that communication works through this mechanism to raise expectations about the likelihood of belief-dependent costly punishment and to increase trust, cooperation, and efficiency. In an experiment we allow communication in the form of a single pre-play message. We measure beliefs and our design permits the observation of promises and deception. The results are consistent with the theory that costly punishment results from belief- dependent anger and frustration. Promises drive the effect of communication on beliefs and broken promises lead to higher rates of costly punishment.

Public goods game with the moral dual process theory

ABSTRACT It is the objective law of development of nature that natural selection and survival of the fittest are incorporated. As the reason that cooperation is not a predeterminate process or results, it is interesting to study the emergent phenomena of cooperation. Although providing a punishment option to community members of the public goods game (PGG) has been shown to effectively promote cooperation . In real life, people will sometimes help others even at the expense of their own costs. Reward behaviour is an important phenomenon of social, which emerges as a result of the interactions among individuals. In this article, we carry out the representative expansion for both positive and negative reciprocit ies to the PGG, which is based on the dual-process theory of morality. We research the evolution of group cooperation about PGG under the condition that punishment and reward exist. This result indicates that punishment and reward are significant in the emergence and stabilisation of cooperation. Our experimental results also provide valuable information about strategies for theories of evolutionary games and social dynamics.

Death Penalty for Corruptors: Between the Human Rights and Challenges of Progress in Indonesian Law

The study concerned here examined students' perceptions of death penalty existence for corruptors. Corruption is a significant problem that captures the attention of the wider public. Corruption has a vast, systematic, and complex impact so that it could be classified as an extraordinary crime. Despite that classification, it turns out that the public considers corruptors’ punishment in Indonesia still too light and has not met the public’s expectations regarding justice. The people still feel the disparity in a penalty for corruption. The public believes capital punishment to a punishment option that could cause a deterrent effect. The majority of the public wants corruptors to be sentenced to death, but there is opposition to the death penalty on the grounds of upholding human rights. This study was conducted by students of the Pendidikan Pancasila dan Kewarganegaraan (PPKn) or Department of Pancasila and Citizenship, Faculty of Social Sciences, Universitas Negeri Medan. It is found in the study that students agree on the death penalty for corruptors, that they do not see human rights as an excuse for rejecting the death penalty. Moreover, the death penalty is to be viewed as a breakthrough in combating corruption in Indonesia.

To help or punish in the face of unfairness: men and women prefer mutually-beneficial strategies over punishment in a sexual selection context.

Consistent with a sexual selection account of cooperation, based on female choice, men, in romantic contexts, in general display mutually-beneficial behaviour and women choose men who do so. This evidence is based on a two-choice-architecture (cooperate or not). Here we extend this to include punishment options using a four-choice-architecture (‘punishing a transgressor’, ‘compensating a victim’, ‘both punishing and compensating’ or ‘doing nothing’). Both compensation (a self-serving mutually-beneficial behaviour) and self-serving punishment, are associated with positive mate qualities. We test which is preferred by males and chosen by female undergraduates. We further explore effects of trait empathy and political ideology on these preferences. In a series of three studies using a third-party punishment and compensation (3PPC) game we show (Study One), that romantically-primed undergraduate males, express a preference to either ‘compensate’ or ‘both compensate and punish’, and undergraduate women find males who ‘compensate’ or ‘compensate and punish’ the most attractive (Studies Two and Three). Compensating men are perceived as compassionate, fair and strong by undergraduate women (Study Three). High trait empathy (Studies One and Three) and a left-wing political ideology (Study Three) are associated with a preference for compensation. Thus, self-serving mutually-beneficial behaviour can be preferred over self-serving punishment as a signal of mate quality in undergraduates. Implications for the evolution of cooperation are discussed with respect to sexual selection.

The long-run effects of communication as a conflict resolution mechanism

The paper studies an experimental conflict in a repeated game and tests the robustness of communication as an intermediate conflict resolution instrument. The results show a strong and persistent impact of communication. Most conflict parties refrain from conflict expenditures even after the opportunity for communication has expired. Third party involvement with punishment options does not enhance this effect while contesting one prize rather than multiple prizes reduces it. Conflict resolution is less successful even in the long term if initial conflict intensity is rather high.

Justice Sensitivity and Cooperation Dynamics in Repeated Public Good Games

It is frequently observed that despite individual incentives to free ride, humans decide to cooperate with each other to increase social payoffs. In the current research, we address the effects of individual differences in justice sensitivity on cooperation. Using incentivized repeated public good games, we find that individual differences in justice sensitivity—the ease of perceiving, remembering, and reacting to injustice from the perspectives of an observer, beneficiary, or perpetrator, but not victim—substantially predicts cooperation in the absence of a punishment option. In contrast, when costly punishment is allowed for, cooperation becomes strategic as it also aims at avoiding subsequent punishment. If such a sanctioning mechanism is in place, justice sensitivity no longer predicts cooperation. The results regarding the degree of cooperation as reaction to initial non-cooperation of one’s counterparts highlight the role of justice-concerning personality traits for the sufficient provision of public goods, as sanctioning institutions are not always possible, effective, or suitable.

Teams in a public goods experiment with punishment

Challenges addressed in global politics, such as climate change, maritime piracy and fighting highly contagious diseases, concern global public goods. The related policy decisions are primarily made by teams. In contrast, economic models of global public goods typically assume a single rational decision maker. We use a laboratory experiment to compare team decisions to the decisions of individuals in a finitely repeated public goods game with and without a costly punishment option. Teams of three participants coordinate on decisions either by majority or unanimity rule. We find that, in the absence of a punishment option, teams deciding by the unanimity rule contribute slightly more than individuals. With the punishment option, unanimity teams choose significantly lower levels of punishment and exhibit anti-social punishment less frequently than individuals. A possible explanation is the elimination of extreme preferences for punishment through the coordination process in teams.

Genetic variation of dopamine and serotonin function modulates the feedback-related negativity during altruistic punishment

Why do humans cooperate and often punish norm violations of others? In the present study, we sought to investigate the genetic bases of altruistic punishment (AP), which refers to the costly punishment of norm violations with potential benefit for other individuals. Recent evidence suggests that norm violations and unfairness are indexed by the feedback-related negativity (FRN), an anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) generated neural response to expectancy violations. Given evidence on the role of serotonin and dopamine in AP as well as in FRN-generation, we explored the impact of genetic variation of serotonin and dopamine function on FRN and AP behavior in response to unfair vs. fair monetary offers in a Dictator Game (DG) with punishment option. In a sample of 45 healthy participants we observed larger FRN amplitudes to unfair DG assignments both for 7-repeat allele carriers of the dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) exon III polymorphism and for l/l-genotype carriers of the serotonin transporter gene-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLRP). Moreover, 5-HTTLPR l/l-genotype carriers punished unfair offers more strongly. These findings support the role of serotonin and dopamine in AP, potentially via their influence on neural mechanisms implicated in the monitoring of expectancy violations and their relation to impulsive and punishment behavior.