Altruistic Punishment in Humans Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter Clemente Jones & Nguyen Lam Psychology...
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![Page 1: Altruistic Punishment in Humans Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter Clemente Jones & Nguyen Lam Psychology 459 05/08/2014.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062712/56649c905503460f9494a935/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Altruistic Punishment in Humans
Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter
Clemente Jones & Nguyen LamPsychology 459
05/08/2014
![Page 2: Altruistic Punishment in Humans Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter Clemente Jones & Nguyen Lam Psychology 459 05/08/2014.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062712/56649c905503460f9494a935/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Introduction
• Evolution of Human Cooperation:• Kin Selection – Cooperation among genetically close
individuals.• Direct Reciprocity – Selfish incentives for long-term
bilateral cooperation.• Indirect Reciprocity – Cooperators build a reputation.
• ???? – Non-repeated cooperation among genetically unrelated people with no reputation gains.
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Solution
• Punishment:– Group better off if free riding is deterred– No one has incentive to punish because it
costs themselves as well as free rider– Punishment of free riders = “Second-order
public good”– Can work if enough people punish free riders
altruistically, with cost and without material benefits for the punishers.
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The Question
Do humans engage in altruistic punishment, and if so, how does this inclination affect
the ability of achieving and sustaining cooperation?
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Participants
• 240 undergraduate students from the University of Zurich (Switzerland) and the Federal Institute of Technology (Switzerland) voluntarily participated in the experiments.• 31% Females• 69% Males
• Different majors• 33 students – control group for the emotion
questionnaire.
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Design• Pre-Study• Participants were randomly assigned to one of ten
experimental sessions (with 24 subjects/session).– 24 subjects allocated to six groups of four.
• Each of the 24 subjects played two 6-period games:– Punishment– No Punishment
• Each participant was placed in front of a computer in a booth such that subjects could not see each other.
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Design Cont.• Each member of the group received an endowment of
20 MUs (real monetary stakes) and each one could contribute between 0-20 MUs to a group project.
• For every MU invested in the project, each of the four group members earned 0.4 MUs, regardless of whether he or she made a contribution. – Selfish: 20 MUs– Cooperate: 32 MUs
• Subjects made their investment decisions simultaneously and, once the decisions were made, they were informed about the investments of the other group members.
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Condition: Punishment
• Subject could punish each of the other group members after they were informed about the others’ investments.
• A punishment decision was implemented by assigning between 0-10 points to the punished member.
• Each point assigned cost the punished member 3 MUs and the punisher 1 MU.
• Punishment is costly and yield no benefits!
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Results• In the 10 sessions, subjects punished other group
members a total of 1,270 times:– 84.3% of the subjects punished at least once.– 34.3% punished more than 5 times.– 9.3% punished more than 10 times.
• The more a subject’s investment fell short of the average investment of the other three group members, the more the subject was punished.
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Figure 1
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Results Cont.
• The presence of punishers establishes a credible threat that deters non-cooperation:– Punished subjects contribute more in the next
periods.• “The act of punishment, although costly for the
punisher, provides a benefit to other members of the population by inducing potential non-cooperators to increase their investments”.
• The introduction (or elimination) of the punishment opportunity led to an immediate rise (or fall) in investment.
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Figure 2a
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Figure 2b
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Why Punish in a One-Shot Context?
• Negative emotions:–Can trigger a willingness to punish free
riders, despite being costly and yielding no direct benefit.
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EmotionsScenario 1 [2]
“You decide to invest 16 [5] francs to the project. The second group member invests 14 [3] and the third 18 [7] francs. Suppose the fourth member invests 2 francs to the
project. You now accidently meet this member. Please indicate your feeling
towards this person.”
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EmotionsResults 1 [2]
• Anger/annoyance measured on seven-point scale (1 = ‘not at all,’ 7 = ‘very much’)
• Scenario 1:–47% had anger levels of 6 or 7–37% had anger level of 5
• Scenario 2:–17.4% had anger levels of 6 or 7–80.5% had anger levels of 4 or 5
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EmotionsScenario 3 [4]
“Imagine that the other three group members invest 14, 16 and 18 [3, 5 and 7] francs to the project. You invest 2 francs to the project and the others know this. You now accidentally meet one of the other
members. Please indicate the feeling you expect from this member towards you.”
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EmotionsResults 3 [4]
• Anger/annoyance measured on seven-point scale (1 = ‘not at all,’ 7 = ‘very much’)
• Scenario 3:–74.5% predicted anger levels of 6 or 7–22.5% predicted anger level of 5
• Scenario 4:–17.8% predicted anger levels of 6 or 7–80% predicted anger levels of 4 or 5
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Controlling for Bias
• Same four scenarios presented to 33 subjects that had not participated in the experiments.
• Same emotional patterns from the 240 experimental subjects were expressed in the 33 controls.
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Conclusions
• Free riding causes strong negative emotions, which most people expect.
• Most punishment executed by above-average contributors on below-average contributors (74.2%).
• Punishment increases with deviation from the average investment.
• Punishment rendered immediately credible because most people know they trigger negative emotions by free riding:– Punishment opportunity leads to an immediate impact
on contributions (as is evident at switch points between punishment and no-punishment conditions).
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Implications
• Altruistic Punishment = key force in establishment of human cooperation.
• There is more at work in sustaining human cooperation than is suggested by kin-selection, direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, and costly signaling.
Kin SelectionDirect Reciprocity
Indirect Reciprocity
Kin SelectionDirect Reciprocity
Indirect ReciprocityAltruistic PunishmentAltruistic Punishment
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Limitations
• Selective population:– High cognitive ability– W.E.I.R.D.
• Sex Ratio:– 31% Females– 69% Males
• NOT representative of the population