Taking charge and stepping in: Individuals who punish are rewarded with prestige and dominance

Abstract

A hallmark of human societies is the scale at which we cooperate with many others, even when they are not closely genetically related to us. One proposed mechanism that helps explain why we cooperate is punishment; cooperation may pay and proliferate if those who free ride on the cooperation of others are punished. Yet this ‘solution’ raises another puzzle of its own: Who will bear the costs of punishing? While the deterrence of free‐riders via punishment serves collective interests, presumably any single individual—who has no direct incentive to punish—is better off letting others pay the costs of punishment. However, emerging theory and evidence indicate that, while punishment may at times be a costly act, certain individuals are better able to ‘afford’ to pay the price of punishment and are often consequentially rewarded with fitness‐enhancing reputation benefits. Synthesizing across these latest lines of research, we propose a novel framework that considers how high status individuals—that is, individuals with greater prestige or dominance—enjoy lower punishment costs. These individuals are thus more willing to punish, and through their punitive action can in turn reap reputational rewards by further gaining more prestige or dominance. These reputational gains, which work in concert to promote the social success of punishers, recoup the costs of punishing. Together, these lines of work suggest that while punishment is often assumed to be altruistic, it need not always depend on altruism, and motivations to punish may at times be self‐interested and driven (whether consciously or unconsciously) by reputational benefits.

Correlates of conflict resolution across cultures

“…Theoretical models suggest cooperative dynamics can emerge in conflict-prone groups in the context of inter-individual heterogeneity. For example, dominant leaders, or individuals who maintain influence via aggressive or coercive strategies (Mesterton-Gibbons and Dugatkin 1995;Cheng 2019), may more effectively enforce norms, levy punishments, and provide conflict resolution services than non or less dominant individuals (Mesterton-Gibbons et al 2011;Redhead, Dhaliwal, and Cheng 2021). Such services, however, also present opportunities for individual costs and collective action dilemmas.…”

“…However, Garfield, Syme, and Hagen (2020) (using the same data analysed here) found that providing punishment services was the strongest positive predictor of leaders with coercive authority, a quality strongly implicated in the dominance style of leadership (Cheng 2019) and punishment services by leaders was moderately associated with conflict resolution in results here. Although qualities linked to dominance-based influence may not be strongly or directly associated with resolving conflicts in the ethnographic record, there is potentially an indirect connection between abilities to enforce punishment and resolve conflict, with dominance-based influence (Redhead, Dhaliwal, and Cheng 2021).…”

Correlates of conflict resolution across cultures

“…The association of providing counsel and direction in followers affairs, rather than evidence for coercion, fear, manipulation or physical formidability, suggests conflict resolution often involves leaders advising followers and providing input influencing outcomes rather than mandating specific outcomes. The ethnographic evidence suggests across cultures, conflict resolution is less likely to be associated with coercive dominance-based influence and more likely to be associated with freely conferred prestige-based influence (Redhead, Dhaliwal, and Cheng 2021). Leaders who resolve conflicts are also likely to perform other prosocial group functions including, group representation, counselling and advising followers, and providing protection and punishment services.…”

Social Hierarchies and Social Networks in Humans

“…Such individuals-commonly termed 'freeriders' or 'defectors'-may act selfishly and reap the benefits of a group's collective e↵orts without providing their own contributions [39,40]. Theory and evidence suggest that groups tackle free-riding, and reduce the costs of coordination, when certain individuals have disproportionate social influence (i.e., direct group e↵orts, and monitor the actions of others) [41][42][43], and when individuals who contribute to the collective e↵ort are rewarded [be those rewards social or material; 44,45].…”