Altruistic Punishment Research Articles

Third-party punishment and symbolic intragroup status

Retributive justice theory has suggested two processes by which punishment is psychologically satisfying to victims of injustice: leveling the power imbalance caused by the transgression and revalidating social consensus over the importance of the rules, norms, and values violated by the offense. The current investigation proposes a third symbolic function that has not yet been identified as a psychological consequence of punishment: confirmation of the victim's membership status in the group (i.e., intragroup standing or respect). Three studies identified perceptions of intragroup membership status as following from third-party punishment, partly explaining the effect of punishment on a victim's group identification. Study 1 showed that, following the experience of an injustice, punishment prevented perceived membership status threats from resulting in victim disidentification. Study 2 showed that third-party desires to punish increased subsequent identification by symbolically communicating the ingroup's regard for the victim, even when the offender did not actually suffer the effects of third-party sanctions. Finally, Study 3 showed that punishment only implied membership status when the act of punishment was instigated by an ingroup authority and was thus identity-relevant. Taken together, these studies offer the first examination of membership status as a relevant concern underlying retributive justice.

An eye-like painting enhances the expectation of a good reputation

The presence of subtle cues of being watched has been reported to make people behave altruistically, even when they are anonymous. Individual selection theory predicts that generosity in the presence of eyes is based on the providers' expectation of a future reward. On the other hand, as we are living in quite a large society in which altruistic punishment is effective, the eyes could elicit fear of punishment. However, no previous study has investigated whether people are concerned with their reputation when subtle social cues are present. We conducted the dictator game in the presence of, or without, a painting of stylized eyes. The participants were then asked to complete a post-experimental questionnaire designed to investigate what they were thinking when they decided the amount of money to offer the recipient and how they perceived the experimental situation. Participants in the eye condition allocated more money to the recipient than did those in the control condition. This effect was not mediated by fear of punishment but by the expectation of a reward. Moreover, the results suggested that the participants expected their actions would enhance their reputation in the eyes of a third party.

Social Preferences Among the People of Sanquianga in Colombia

The Afro-descendent people of the Sanquianga region in the Colombian Pacific Coast live under particularly extreme poverty conditions. Although highly integrated to markets through very frequent interactions, their access to basic social services and stable income generating activities are constrained, and their dependence on their local commons for food, fisheries, wood and firewood is high. Nevertheless, their pro-social preferences are rather high compared to other regions of Colombia and the world. High levels of altruism, sharing, reciprocity and hyper-fairness were observed in a series of Dictator, Ultimatum and Third-Party Punishment experiments conducted with a sample of 186 adults of two villages in the region. One of the more striking findings is that personal material wealth is associated with lower levels of generosity in the DG and UG games. Some explanations based on the historical roots of these small-scale societies may explain such pro-social behavior.

Altruistic punishment and the threat of feuds

Altruistic punishment may promote cooperation, but can also lead to costly feuds. We examine how the threat of feuds affects individuals’ willingness to engage in altruistic punishment in a public good experiment in which the number of stages is determined by participants’ actions. The design imposes minimal restrictions on who can punish whom and when, and therefore allows participants to use a range of punishment strategies. We find that participants recognize the threat of feuds and respond to it by employing strategies that prevent their breakout. When feuds can span several periods, the extent of altruistic punishment is greatly reduced. This leads to progressively lower levels of cooperation and earnings relative to a baseline treatment where punishment cannot be avenged.

Free-Riding on Altruistic Punishment? An Experimental Comparison of Third-Party Punishment in a Stand-Alone and in an In-Group Environment

While second-party punishment is suitable in small groups, third-party punishment is much more common in large societies, where it is generally recognized as a social norm enforcement device that may guarantee social stability. However, in large societies, the presence of a potential additional third-party punisher who observes the norm violation and decides to intervene becomes more probable. The question arises as to whether third-party punishment would be robust with respect to an enlargement of the pool of potential altruistic punishers, namely the introduction of a second potential punisher. The relevance of this question is evident because, should the case be that the presence of several potential third-party punishers activates free-riding attitudes, third-party punishment may decline or even collapse altogether. In our paper we compare, by means of an economic experiment, punishment by a single third party (the Stand-Alone case) with punishment by third parties (In-Group environment). Shifting punishment choices into this “enlarged environment” allows us to study, in a systematic way, the complex relationship between the punisher’s expectations about her/his peer’s punishment decisions and her/his own punishment choices. Our data suggest that individual punishers are heterogeneous as to their individual punishment characteristics and the presence of a second punisher affects their choices to a certain extent. Consequently, the implementation of voluntary punishment depends on the distribution of types within the population. This result allows both to put into discussion the extreme emphasis devoted to voluntary third-party punishment as the “golden cornerstone” of spontaneous social order and to explain why large developed societies need institutional legal systems as the root of stability.

The Effect of Religion on Cooperation and Altruistic Punishment: Experimental Evidence from Public Goods Experiments

This paper experimentally examines how religious festivals and the degree of religiosity affect cooperation and altruistic punishment by using public goods experiments. We conducted the experiments in Turkey at different points in time; one on the most religious day during Ramadan (the Night of Power – Laylat al-Qadr) and the other at a time without any religious festivals other than the normal daily prayers. The overall results show no differences in cooperation or altruistic punishment among individuals during Ramadan, even when the degree of their religiosity varied. However, less religious people did change their cooperative behaviour in response to religious festivals. Most of the differences can, however, be explained by differences in beliefs about others contributions. By and large, this indicates the importance of conditional cooperation.

The 'spiteful' origins of human cooperation.

We analyse generosity, second-party ('spiteful') punishment (2PP), and third-party ('altruistic') punishment (3PP) in a cross-cultural experimental economics project. We show that smaller societies are less generous in the Dictator Game but no less prone to 2PP in the Ultimatum Game. We might assume people everywhere would be more willing to punish someone who hurt them directly (2PP) than someone who hurt an anonymous third person (3PP). While this is true of small societies, people in large societies are actually more likely to engage in 3PP than 2PP. Strong reciprocity, including generous offers and 3PP, exists mostly in large, complex societies that face numerous challenging collective action problems. We argue that 'spiteful' 2PP, motivated by the basic emotion of anger, is more universal than 3PP and sufficient to explain the origins of human cooperation.

Compassion for one reduces punishment for another

The ability of compassion felt toward one person to reduce punishment directed at another was examined. The use of a staged interaction in which one individual cheats to earn higher compensation than others resulted in heightened third-party punishment being directed at the cheater. However, among participants who were induced to feel compassion toward a separate individual, punishment of the cheater disappeared even though the cheater clearly intended to cheat and showed no remorse for doing so. Moreover, additional analyses revealed that the reduction in punishment was directly mediated by the amount of compassion participants experienced toward the separate individual.

Impulsive choice and altruistic punishment are correlated and increase in tandem with serotonin depletion.

Human cooperation may partly depend on the presence of individuals willing to incur personal costs to punish noncooperators. The psychological factors that motivate such 'altruistic punishment' are not fully understood; some have argued that altruistic punishment is a deliberate act of norm enforcement that requires self-control, while others claim that it is an impulsive act driven primarily by emotion. In the current study, we addressed this question by examining the relationship between impulsive choice and altruistic punishment in the ultimatum game. As the neurotransmitter serotonin has been implicated in both impulsive choice and altruistic punishment, we investigated the effects of manipulating serotonin on both measures. Across individuals, impulsive choice and altruistic punishment were correlated and increased following serotonin depletion. These findings imply that altruistic punishment reflects the absence rather than the presence of self control, and suggest that impulsive choice and altruistic punishment share common neural mechanisms.

Are patients with schizophrenia rational maximizers? Evidence from an ultimatum game study

Schizophrenia is associated with impaired social cognition and community functioning. Social decision-making strategies of healthy controls and patients with schizophrenia were compared by using the ultimatum game (UG). In this game two players have to split a sum of money. The proposer offers a portion to the responder, who decides to either accept or reject the offer. Rejection results in no income to either of the parties. Unfair proposals are frequently rejected by nonclinical individuals, a phenomenon described as altruistic punishment. Patients and controls participated in a series of UG interactions as responders in a computerized test setting. We also tested the effect of the proposer's facial expression on decision-making. Our results indicate that patients with schizophrenia accepted unfair offers at a significantly higher rate than did healthy controls. In contrast, at fair proposals, the acceptance rate was lower in patients compared with controls. At higher offers, the proposer's facial expression (positive/negative) significantly influenced the acceptance rate (positive facial expression increased the likelihood of acceptance) in the control group. This effect was not observed in the patient group. These results suggest that schizophrenia patients are impaired in socioeconomic interactions requiring emotion recognition and decision-making, which may result in unstable behavioral strategies.

The difference between kinship and friendship: (Field-) experimental evidence on trust and punishment

This paper reports on a one-shot trust experiment with and without third party punishment (TPP). Participants were recruited such that each session contains multiple people who are friends, family members, and unrelated villagers. Participants were either paired with one of their reported family members, a friend or an unrelated villager. The design enables to (1) compare levels of trust and trustworthiness shown to family members vs. friends vs. unrelated villagers, (2) examine the propensity of third parties to punish selfish behaviour exhibited between friends, family members and villagers, and (3) examine the effect potential punishment has on trust and trustworthiness among family, friends and villagers. So far, microeconomic experiments have not investigated kinship in an anonymous way and also its relation to punishment is unknown. Experimental trust and trustworthiness varies between only 20% when playing with a villager and nearly 80% when matched with a family member. TPP significantly increases trust and trustworthiness in interactions among villagers and friends, but TPP is detrimental among family members.

Altruistic punishment in patients with Parkinson's disease with and without impulsive behaviour

Punishing violators of social norms when there is personal cost is known as altruistic punishment. We tested patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) with and without impulsive–compulsive behaviours (ICBs) and matched control subjects, on and off their regular dopamine replacement therapy on a task, in which the patients decided whether or not to invest a sum of money with a trustee. The sum was then quadrupled and the trustee could decide whether or not to return a portion of the investment. Participants could punish the trustee after they were informed of the trustee's decision. We found that PD patients without ICBs on or off medication punished more often than controls, whereas PD patients with ICBs punished more than controls on medication, but similar to controls off medication. These results suggest a role for dopamine in altruistic punishment decisions in PD patients with impulsive compulsive behaviour.

Altruistic Punishment and the Threat of Feuds

Altruistic punishment may promote cooperation, but can also lead to costly feuds. We examine how the threat of feuds a¤ects individuals' willingness to engage in altruistic punishment in a public good experiment in which the number of stages is determined by participants' actions. The design allows participants to use a range of punishment strategies. We nd that participants employ strategies that prevent the breakout of feuds. When feuds can span several periods, the extent of altruistic punishment is greatly reduced. This leads to progressively lower levels of cooperation and earnings relative to a baseline treatment where punishment cannot be avenged.

Has punishment played a role in the evolution of cooperation? A critical review

In the past decade, experiments on altruistic punishment have played a central role in the study of the evolution of cooperation. By showing that people are ready to incur a cost to punish cheaters and that punishment help to stabilise cooperation, these experiments have greatly contributed to the rise of group selection theory. However, despite its experimental robustness, it is not clear whether altruistic punishment really exists. Here, I review the anthropological literature and show that hunter-gatherers rarely punish cheaters. Instead, they avoid dealing with them and switch to other partners. I suggest that these data are better explained by individual selection, and in particular by partner choice models, in which individuals are in competition to be recruited by cooperative partners. I discuss two apparent problems for partner choice theories: large-scale cooperation and punishments in economic games. I suggest that rather than favouring group selection theory, these two phenomena provide evidence in favour of individual selection: (1) people produce large-scale cooperation through institutions in which punishment is not altruistic but rewarded on an individual basis; (2) punishment in experimental games can be explained without altruism and is indeed often better explained by individual interests.

Complexity at large

Complexity at large

A role of the anterior insula in altruistic punishment: An fMRI study using the ultimatum game and the dictator game

A role of the anterior insula in altruistic punishment: An fMRI study using the ultimatum game and the dictator game

When Giving Is Good: Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Activation for Others' Intentions

In social decision-making, people care both about others' outcomes and their intentions to help or harm. How the brain integrates representations of others' intentions with their outcomes, however, is unknown. In this study, participants inferred others' decisions in an economic game during functional magnetic resonance imaging. When the game was described in terms of donations, ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) activation increased for inferring generous play and decreased for inferring selfish play. When the game was described in terms of individual savings, however, VMPFC activation did not distinguish between strategies. Distinct medial prefrontal regions also encoded consistency with situational norms. A separate network, including right temporoparietal junction and parahippocampal gyrus, was more activated for inferential errors in the donation than in the savings condition. These results demonstrate that neural responses to others' generosity or selfishness depend not only on their actions but also on their perceived intentions.

Beyond revenge: Neural and genetic bases of altruistic punishment

It is still debated how altruistic punishment as one form of strong reciprocity has established during evolution and which motives may underlie such behavior. Recent neuroscientific evidence on the activation of brain reward regions during altruistic punishment in two-person one-shot exchange games suggests satisfaction through the punishment of norm violations as one underlying motive. In order to address this issue in more detail, we used fMRI during a one-shot economic exchange game that warrants strong reciprocity by introducing a third party punishment condition wherein revenge is unlikely to play a role. We report here that indeed, reward regions such as the nucleus accumbens showed punishment-related activation. Moreover, we provide preliminary evidence that genetic variation of dopamine turnover impacts similarly on punishment-related nucleus accumbens activation during both first person and third party punishment. The overall pattern of results suggests a common cognitive-affective-motivational network as the driving force for altruistic punishment, with only quantitative differences between first person and third party perspectives.

Evolution of Fairness: Rereading the Data

J. Henrich et al. 's Research Article (“Markets, religion, community size, and the evolution of fairness and punishment,” 19 March, p. [1480][1]) is a valuable addition to the growing literature testing behavioral hypotheses through careful cross-cultural measurement. However, the data they report falsify their theory. The authors propose that increases in third-party punishment of unfairness drove an increase in fairness norms, enabling the emergence of large-scale market economies. Critical to this theory is their hypothesis that exposure to third-party punishment actually elicits an increase in fairness. Relevant to evaluating this hypothesis, the authors conducted two near-parallel economic games: a Dictator Game (in which a “dictator” unilaterally divides a windfall gain with another person—a measure of fairness) and a Third-Party Punishment Game (the Dictator Game with the addition of exposure to possible third-party punishment). Their central hypothesis requires that adding punishment to the Dictator Game will increase fairness, but their data show that the addition of punishment decreases fairness (p. 1483). This finding unambiguously refutes their central hypothesis. Henrich et al. also assert that their data—showing patterned cultural variability in cooperation—can determine whether modern levels of generosity and altruism are driven by an evolved social psychology or by cultural processes. The authors claim that their data decisively favor the cultural processes hypothesis. Yet nothing in their data can test (even in principle) whether it is psychological or cultural processes (or both) that cause these cross-cultural differences. Only long-abandoned instinct-as-reflex theories expect invariant responses in the face of different social inputs. By contrast, modern adaptationist theories predict that our evolved social psychology will be calibrated by relevant environmental inputs. Many of these inputs—such as the local value of long-term cooperative relationships and the fidelity of reputations—are likely to covary with market integration, making it at least as likely that an evolved, context-sensitive social psychology is driving the results that the authors observe. That is, psychological and cultural theories both predict cross-cultural variation. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1182238

Free-Riding on Altruistic Punishment? An Experimental Comparison of Third-Party-Punishment in a Stand-Alone and in an In-Group Environment

This paper deals with the subject of third-party punishment. The paper compares, by means of an economic experiment, punishment by a third party (Stand-Alone case) with punishment by third parties (In-Group environment). This deliberate introduction of a second potential punisher is neither subtle nor marginal. Shifting punishment choices into this “enlarged environment” allows us to study, in a systematic way, the complex relationship between the punisher’s expectations about her/his peer’s punishment decisions and her/his own punishment choices. In particular, we aim to examine whether, on average, individual punishment is systematically lower in an In-Group environment compared with the Stand-Alone case. Our data suggest individual punishers are heterogeneous as to their individual punishment characteristics and to the degree by which the presence of a second punisher affects their choices. The implementation of voluntary punishment depends on the distribution of types within the population. This result is relevant. It allows both to put into discussion the extreme emphasis devoted to voluntary third-party punishment as the “golden cornerstone” of spontaneous social order and to give much more relevance to institutional legal systems as the root of stability.