Punishment and spite, the dark side of cooperation

Jensen, Keith

doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0146

Cited by 170 publications

(178 citation statements)

References 159 publications

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“…Indeed, experiments reveal that they will do this even when it is costly to themselves (Gintis 2011, Ch 3.6). This proclivity for punishment is further underscored by neurobiological evidence suggesting that punishment activates parts of the brain's reward circuit and so is likely to feel pleasurable (Jensen 2010;Pinker 2011, 529-532). 5 There are many criminal theorists who support this basic position: Michael Moore (1993;1997); Larry Alexander and Kimberly Ferzan (2006); and Antony Duff (2007).…”

Section: The Argument For the Retribution Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Support for this comes from experimental work and from the evolutionary and ethnographic record (Carlsmith and Darley 2008;Jensen 2010). The experimental work is particularly instructive.…”

Section: The Argument For the Retribution Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ethnographic evidence suggests that practices of punishment and blame are common to all human societies (Jensen 2010;Brown 1991). What's more, experiments reveal that humans have a strong tendency to punish anyone they believe to be violating group norms.…”

Section: The Argument For the Retribution Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Robots, law and the retribution gap

2016

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We are living through an era of increased robotisation. Some authors have already begun to explore the impact of this robotisation on legal rules and practice. In doing so, many highlight potential liability gaps that might arise through robot misbehaviour. Although these gaps are interesting and socially significant, they do not exhaust the possible gaps that might be created by increased robotisation. In this article, I make the case for one of those alternative gaps: the retribution gap. This gap arises from a mismatch between the human desire for retribution and the absence of appropriate subjects of retributive blame. I argue for the potential existence of this gap in an era of increased robotisation; suggest that it is much harder to plug this gap than it is to plug those thus far explored in the literature; and then highlight three important social implications of this gap.

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Section: The Argument For the Retribution Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Support for this comes from experimental work and from the evolutionary and ethnographic record (Carlsmith and Darley 2008;Jensen 2010). The experimental work is particularly instructive.…”

Section: The Argument For the Retribution Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Robots, law and the retribution gap

2016

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“…Males, and alloparents in general, may increase their fitness by influencing the behavior of conspecifics in their social group, as they would when disciplining another dolphin. Studies on punishment in humans and primates have suggested that punishment evolved as a way to encourage cooperation and reduce selfish behavior in social groups (Boyd, Gintis, & Bowles, 2010;Gardner & West, 2004;Jensen, 2010;Riedl, Jensen, Call, & Tomasello, 2012;Seymour, Singer, & Dolan, 2007). A review of punishment in animal groups (Clutton-Brock & Parker, 1995) suggested that punishment from a dominant animal to a subordinate can increase the dominant animal's fitness.…”

Section: Description Of Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Short chases may also be related to the threat of discipline that a chase implies. In some cooperatively breeding animals, dominant individuals maintain cooperation and order in their society through the threat of costly punishment to an uncooperative individual (Jensen, 2010;Wong, Buston, Munday, & Jones, 2007). Subdominant individuals in the population may choose to limit the frequency of unpopular behaviors to avoid being attacked or exiled from their social group or denied other social and reproductive benefits (Balshine-Earn, Neat, Reid, & Taborsky, 1997;Johnstone & Cant, 1999;Wong et al, 2007).…”

Section: Success In Disciplinementioning

confidence: 99%

Maternal and Alloparental Discipline in Atlantic Spotted Dolphins (Stenalla frontalis) in the Bahamas

Weinpress¹,

Herzing²

2015

AB&C

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-Maternal and alloparental disciplinary behavior were examined in a community of Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) on Little Bahama Bank, Bahamas. An operational definition of discipline was created and analyses were performed of underwater behavior by spotted dolphins. Results indicated that both mothers and alloparents performed discipline towards juveniles and calves in their community. Both males and females were observed performing and receiving discipline. Disciplinarians were significantly more likely to be adults than juveniles, and receivers of discipline were significantly more likely to be calves than juveniles. Pursuit, contact, and display behaviors were used in discipline, however pursuit behaviors were most often observed. Variables such as age class, sex, and parity were not found to influence how discipline was implemented, nor outcome. The durations of all disciplinary pursuits analyzed were under thirty seconds.

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Five‐year‐olds punish antisocial adults

Kenward¹,

Östh²

2015

Aggressive Behavior

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The human tendency to impose costs on those who have behaved antisocially towards third parties (third-party punishment) has a formative influence on societies, yet very few studies of the development of this tendency exist. In most studies where young children have punished, participants have imposed costs on puppets, leaving open the question as to whether young children punish in real third-party situations. Here, five-year-olds were given the opportunity to allocate desirable or unpleasant items to antisocial and neutral adults, who were presented as real and shown on video. Neutral individuals were almost always allocated only desirable items. Antisocial individuals were instead usually allocated unpleasant items, as long as participants were told they would give anonymously. Most participants who were instead told they would give in person did not allocate unpleasant items, although a minority did so. This indicates that the children interpreted the situation as real, and that whereas they genuinely desired to punish antisocial adults, they did not usually dare do so in person. Boys punished more frequently than girls. The willingness of preschoolers to spontaneously engage in third-party punishment, occasionally even risking the social costs of antagonizing an anti-social adult, demonstrates a deep-seated early-developing punitive sentiment in humans.

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Punishment and spite, the dark side of cooperation

Cited by 170 publications

References 159 publications

Robots, law and the retribution gap

Robots, law and the retribution gap

Maternal and Alloparental Discipline in Atlantic Spotted Dolphins (Stenalla frontalis) in the Bahamas

Five‐year‐olds punish antisocial adults

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