The desire to expel unselfish members from the group.

Parks, Craig D.; Stone, Asako B.

doi:10.1037/a0018403

Cited by 98 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Our measures of social rejection, however, did hint that atypical cooperators were slightly less likely to be preferred for subsequent hypothetical interactions, when player 5 would then be in the group with this individual. This tendency, although weak, supports previous work showing that excessively helpful, cooperative or moralistic individuals might be viewed negatively rather than positively by others in their social group [9,11,23,24]. …”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…It is possible that defectors were punished regardless of their prevalence, because individuals did not make punishment decisions based on the events in the game but instead on a pre-existing perception of defection as a norm violation formed from their experience in the ‘real world’. However, previous studies in the same cultural group (US-based subjects) have shown that individuals' behaviour is sensitive to similar social norm manipulations that occur within the confines of the game setting [9,11]. …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Defectors, not norm violators, are punished by third-parties

2014

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Punishment of defectors and cooperators is prevalent when their behaviour deviates from the social norm. Why atypical behaviour is more likely to be punished than typical behaviour remains unclear. One possible proximate explanation is that individuals simply dislike norm violators. However, an alternative possibility exists: individuals may be more likely to punish atypical behaviour, because the cost of punishment generally increases with the number of individuals that are punished. We used a public goods game with third-party punishment to test whether punishment of defectors was reduced when defecting was typical, as predicted if punishment is responsive to norm violation. The cost of punishment was fixed, regardless of the number of players punished, meaning that it was not more costly to punish typical, relative to atypical, behaviour. Under these conditions, atypical behaviour was not punished more often than typical behaviour. In fact, most punishment was targeted at defectors, irrespective of whether defecting was typical or atypical. We suggest that the reduced punishment of defectors when they are common might often be explained in terms of the costs to the punisher, rather than responses to norm violators.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defectors, not norm violators, are punished by third-parties

2014

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“…Before turning to the implications of our findings we wish to address a limitation of our sanctions instead appear to be related to patience and impulsivity (10,11), normative considerations (7,(12)(13)(14)(15), and genetic correlates of aggression (16).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

'Altruistic' and 'Antisocial' Punishers are One and the Same

Eriksson

Cownden

Ehn

et al. 2014

RBE

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'Altruistic' and 'antisocial' punishers are one and the same AbstractIn certain economic experiments, some participants willingly pay a cost to punish peers who contribute too little to the public good. Because such punishment can lead to improved group outcomes, this costly punishment has been conceived of as altruistic. Here we provide evidence that individual variation in the propensity to punish low contributions is unrelated to altruism. First, individual use of punishment was uncorrelated with contribution to the public good, contrary to the hypothesis that punishers are proximally motivated by prosocial preferences. Second, individual use of punishment was positively correlated across situations where the use of punishment is typically group beneficial and situations where the use of punishment is typically group detrimental, as well as across situations of radically different strategic structures. These findings contrast sharply with the premise that the tendency to use punishment can fruitfully be regarded as an adaptation for solving social dilemmas.Keywords. public goods, costly punishment, cooperation, altruism 4 Economic experiments have shown that people use costly punishment in public goods games more frequently than is expected from rational optimizers of financial gain (1-3).Often, though not always, this punishment is directed at those who have made low contributions to the public good. While contributions to the public good diminish over time in the absence of punishment, the addition of costly punishment, contingent on the particular usage of that punishment, can induce and sustain cooperation. Thus punishment, in some cases, appears to solve the first order social dilemma of the public goods game. This finding has inspired an "altruistic" punishment hypothesis: human cooperation in social dilemmas is explained, in part, by the prevalence of individuals predisposed by evolution to pay the costs of punishing non-cooperators and thus sustain cooperation. Here we provide direct tests of both a motivational and an instrumental interpretation of the "altruistic" punishment hypotheses namely: i) Punishment is directly motivated by prosocial preferences. ii)Regardless of proximal motivation, individual propensity to punish is a (cultural) group level adaptation specifically for solving collective action problems.Under the motivational interpretation of the altruistic punishment hypothesis, punishment of low contributors should be correlated with other behaviors that are motivated by prosocial preferences. Although general patterns of behavior in the public goods game can be understood without invoking prosocial preferences (4), individual differences in contributions to the public good when there is no threat of punishment are related to individual differences in prosocial preferences (5). Therefore, within groups playing a public goods game the motivational interpretation of the altruistic punishment hypothesis predicts individual

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“…The strongest evidence suggestive of a common-moral association comes from studies finding that moral judgments of socially undesirable behavior tend to be less harsh when the behavior is perceived to be common (McGraw, 1985;Trafimow, Reeder, & Blising, 2001;Welch et al, 2005), and that people seem to find fault both with singular selfishness and singular generosity in others (Parks & Stone, 2010).…”

Section: Observations Suggestive Of a Common-moral Associationmentioning

confidence: 99%