Altruistic Punishment and Strong Reciprocity

Paál, Tünde

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3768-1

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…Evolutionary models assuming these two traits, cooperation and punishment form one conjoined, altruistic, trait (dubbed ‘strong reciprocity’) have been proposed as explanations for the evolution of a uniquely human cooperation between non-relatives [3,10–12,16–19]. This ‘Altruistic Punishment’ hypothesis (also known as the ‘Strong Reciprocity’ hypothesis [20,21]) posits that ‘ Strong reciprocators bear the cost of rewarding or punishing even if they gain no individual economic benefit whatsoever from their acts .’ [14] and has been supported by experiments showing that punishment is mostly directed towards below average [3], or relatively lower [22], contributors. This suggests that altruistic cooperation and punishment are indeed correlated, leading some to suggest that governmental policies aiming to increase cooperation should aim ‘to provide opportunities for the public-spirited to punish free-riders' rather than rely on institutional incentives [23,24].…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Evolutionary models assuming these two traits, cooperation and punishment form one conjoined, altruistic, trait (dubbed 'strong reciprocity') have been proposed as explanations for the evolution of a uniquely human cooperation between non-relatives [3,[10][11][12][16][17][18][19]. This 'Altruistic Punishment' hypothesis (also known as the 'Strong Reciprocity' hypothesis [20,21]) posits that 'Strong reciprocators bear the cost of rewarding or punishing even if they gain no individual economic benefit whatsoever from their acts.' [14] and has been supported by experiments showing that punishment is mostly directed towards below average [3], or relatively lower [22], contributors.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Decoupling cooperation and punishment in humans shows that punishment is not an altruistic trait

Burton-Chellew

Guérin

2021

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Economic experiments have suggested that cooperative humans will altruistically match local levels of cooperation (conditional cooperation) and pay to punish non-cooperators (altruistic punishment). Evolutionary models have suggested that if altruists punish non-altruists this could favour the evolution of costly helping behaviours (cooperation) among strangers. An often-key requirement is that helping behaviours and punishing behaviours form one single conjoined trait (strong reciprocity). Previous economics experiments have provided support for the hypothesis that punishment and cooperation form one conjoined, altruistically motivated, trait. However, such a conjoined trait may be evolutionarily unstable, and previous experiments have confounded a fear of being punished with being surrounded by cooperators, two factors that could favour cooperation. Here, we experimentally decouple the fear of punishment from a cooperative environment and allow cooperation and punishment behaviour to freely separate (420 participants). We show, that if a minority of individuals is made immune to punishment, they (i) learn to stop cooperating on average despite being surrounded by high levels of cooperation, contradicting the idea of conditional cooperation and (ii) often continue to punish, ‘hypocritically’, showing that cooperation and punishment do not form one, altruistically motivated, linked trait.

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