Altruistic Compensation Vs. Altruistic Punishment: How People Restore Justice

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marijke C. Leliveld ◽  
Eric van Dijk ◽  
Ilja van Beest
Keyword(s):  
Altruistic 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.

scholarly journals Impulsive choice and altruistic punishment are correlated and increase in tandem with serotonin depletion.

Emotion ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 855-862 ◽  
Author(s):  
Molly J. Crockett ◽  
Luke Clark ◽  
Matthew D. Lieberman ◽  
Golnaz Tabibnia ◽  
Trevor W. Robbins
Keyword(s):  
Impulsive Choice ◽  
Serotonin Depletion ◽  
Altruistic Punishment

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.

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