Facial Likability and Smiling Enhance Cooperation, but Have No Direct Effect on Moralistic Punishment

2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 263-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Mieth ◽  
Raoul Bell ◽  
Axel Buchner
Keyword(s):  
Conditional Probability ◽  
Direct Effect ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma Game ◽  
Costly Punishment ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma Game ◽  
Moralistic Punishment

Abstract. The present study serves to test how positive and negative appearance-based expectations affect cooperation and punishment. Participants played a prisoner’s dilemma game with partners who either cooperated or defected. Then they were given a costly punishment option: They could spend money to decrease the payoffs of their partners. Aggregated over trials, participants spent more money for punishing the defection of likable-looking and smiling partners compared to punishing the defection of unlikable-looking and nonsmiling partners, but only because participants were more likely to cooperate with likable-looking and smiling partners, which provided the participants with more opportunities for moralistic punishment. When expressed as a conditional probability, moralistic punishment did not differ as a function of the partners’ facial likability. Smiling had no effect on the probability of moralistic punishment, but punishment was milder for smiling in comparison to nonsmiling partners.

scholarly journals Moral labels increase cooperation and costly punishment in a Prisoner’s Dilemma game with punishment option

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Mieth ◽  
Axel Buchner ◽  
Raoul Bell
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Framing Effects ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma Game ◽  
Costly Punishment ◽  
Moral Framing ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma Game

AbstractTo determine the role of moral norms in cooperation and punishment, we examined the effects of a moral-framing manipulation in a Prisoner’s Dilemma game with a costly punishment option. In each round of the game, participants decided whether to cooperate or to defect. The Prisoner’s Dilemma game was identical for all participants with the exception that the behavioral options were paired with moral labels (“I cooperate” and “I cheat”) in the moral-framing condition and with neutral labels (“A” and “B”) in the neutral-framing condition. After each round of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game, participants had the opportunity to invest some of their money to punish their partners. In two experiments, moral framing increased moral and hypocritical punishment: participants were more likely to punish partners for defection when moral labels were used than when neutral labels were used. When the participants’ cooperation was enforced by their partners’ moral punishment, moral framing did not only increase moral and hypocritical punishment but also cooperation. The results suggest that moral framing activates a cooperative norm that specifically increases moral and hypocritical punishment. Furthermore, the experience of moral punishment by the partners may increase the importance of social norms for cooperation, which may explain why moral framing effects on cooperation were found only when participants were subject to moral punishment.

Altruistic Punishment: The Golden Keystone of Human Cooperation and Social Stability?

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-284
Author(s):  
Peter Lewisch
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Social Stability ◽  
Altruistic Punishment ◽  
Costly Punishment ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Experimental Findings ◽  
Emotional Basis ◽  
Instrumental Goal

Abstract ‘Altruistic punishment’ (i.e., costly punishment that serves no instrumental goal for the punisher) could serve, as suggested by the pertinent experimental literature, as a powerful enforcer of social norms. This paper discusses foundations, extensions, and, in particular, limits and open questions of this concept-and it does so mostly based on experimental evidence provided by the author. Inter alia, the paper relates the (standard) literature on negative emotions as a trigger of second party punishment to more recent experimental findings on the phenomenon of ‘spontaneous cooperation’ and ‘spontaneous punishment’ and demonstrates its (tight) emotional basis. Furthermore, the paper discusses the potential for free riding on altruistic punishment. While providing valuable insights into the understanding of social order, ‘altruistic punishment’ is thus not the golden keystone of social stability.

Punishment Leads to Cooperative Behavior in Structured Societies

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shade T. Shutters
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Computer Simulations ◽  
Degree Distribution ◽  
Cooperative Behavior ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
Scale Free ◽  
Structured Population ◽  
Altruistic Punishment ◽  
Costly Punishment ◽  
Scale Free Networks

Altruistic punishment occurs when an agent incurs a cost to punish another but receives no material benefit for doing so. Despite the seeming irrationality of such behavior, humans in laboratory settings routinely pay to punish others even in anonymous, one-shot settings. Costly punishment is ubiquitous among social organisms in general and is increasingly accepted as a mechanism for the evolution of cooperation. Yet if it is true that punishment explains cooperation, the evolution of altruistic punishment remains a mystery. In a series of computer simulations I give agents the ability to punish one another while playing a continuous prisoner's dilemma. In simulations without social structure, expected behavior evolves—agents do not punish and consequently no cooperation evolves. Likewise, in simulations with social structure but no ability to punish, no cooperation evolves. However, in simulations where agents are both embedded in a social structure and have the option to inflict costly punishment, cooperation evolves quite readily. This suggests a simple and broadly applicable explanation of cooperation for social organisms that have nonrandom social structure and a predisposition to punish one another. Results with scale-free networks further suggest that nodal degree distribution plays an important role in determining whether cooperation will evolve in a structured population.

Costly punishment and cooperation in the evolutionary snowdrift game

2011 ◽  
Vol 390 (9) ◽  
pp. 1607-1614 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Xu ◽  
M. Ji ◽  
Yee Jiun Yap ◽  
Da-Fang Zheng ◽  
P.M. Hui
Keyword(s):  
Snowdrift Game ◽  
Costly Punishment

When Do Conflicting Parties Share Political Power?

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Battaglini ◽  
Lydia Mechtenberg
Keyword(s):  
Majority Rule ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Small Extent ◽  
Simple Majority ◽  
Proportional Rule ◽  
Simple Majority Rule ◽  
Electoral Outcome ◽  
Costly Punishment ◽  
Voting Rule ◽  
Do So

AbstractWe conduct a laboratory experiment to study the incentives of a privileged group (the “yellows”) to share political power with another group (the “blues”). The yellows collectively choose the voting rule for a general election: a simple-majority rule that favors them, or a proportional rule. In two treatments, the blues can use a costly punishment option. We find that the yellows share power voluntarily only to a small extent, but they are more inclined to do so under the threat of punishment, despite the fact that punishments are not sub-game perfect. The blue group conditions punishments both on the voting rule and the electoral outcome.

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