Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-nptnm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-19T01:12:32.519Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Strong reciprocity is real, but there is no evidence that uncoordinated costly punishment sustains cooperation in the wild

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2012

Francesco Guala
Francesco Guala
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Milan, 20122 Milan, Italy. francesco.guala@unimi.ithttp://users.unimi.it/guala/index.htm
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I argue in my target article that field evidence does not support the costly punishment hypothesis. Some commentators object to my reading of the evidence, while others agree that evidence in favour of costly punishment is scant. Most importantly, no rigorous measurement of cost-benefit ratios in the field has been attempted so far. This lack of evidence does not rule out costly punishment as a cause of human cooperation, but it does pre-empt some overconfident claims made in the past. Other commentators have interpreted my article as an anti-experimental pamphlet or as a flat denial of the existence of pro-social motives – which it was not intended to be. While we have enough data to establish the existence (and theoretical relevance) of strong reciprocity motives, I argue in this response that their efficacy (and policy relevance) has not been demonstrated.

Type
Author's Response
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , February 2012 , pp. 45 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Balliet, D., Moulder, L. B. & Van Lange, P. A. M. (2011) Reward, punishment, and cooperation: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 137(4):594–615. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0023489.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boehm, C. (1984) Blood revenge: The enactment and management of conflict in Montenegro and other tribal societies. University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Boehm, C. (2000) Conflict and the evolution of social control. Journal of Consciousness Studies 7:79–183. (Special issue on Evolutionary origins of morality, ed. L. Katz).Google Scholar
Boyd, R., Gintis, H. & Bowles, S. (2010) Coordinated punishment of defectors sustains cooperation and can proliferate when rare. Science 328(5978):617–20. Available at: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/328/5978/617.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Casari, M. & Luini, L. (2009) Cooperation under alternative punishment institutions: An experiment. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 71(2):273–82. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2009.03.022.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Egas, M. & Riedl, A. (2008) The economics of altruistic punishment and the maintenance of cooperation. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 275(1637):871–78. Available at: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/275/1637/871.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ertan, A., Page, T. & Putterman, L. (2009) Who to punish? Individual decisions and majority rules in mitigating the free rider problem. European Economic Review 53:495–511. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2008.09.007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gächter, S., Renner, E. & Sefton, M. (2008) The long-run benefits of punishment. Science 322(5907):1510. Available at: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/322/5907/1510.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gambetta, D. (1993) The Sicilian Mafia. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gerber, A. S., Green, D. P. & Larimer, C. W. (2008) Social pressure and voter turnout: Evidence from a large-scale field experiment. American Political Science Review 102(1):33–48. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S000305540808009X.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guala, F. (2005) The methodology of experimental economics. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guala, F. (2008) Paradigmatic experiments: The ultimatum game from testing to measurement device. Philosophy of Science 75:658–69. Available at: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/594512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J., Ensminger, J., McElreath, R., Barr, A., Barrett, C., Bolyanatz, A., Cardenas, J. C., Gurven, M., Gwako, E., Henrich, N., Lesorogol, C., Marlowe, F., Tracer, D. P. & Ziker, J. (2010a) Market, religion, community size and the evolution of fairness and punishment. Science 327:1480–84. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1182238.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J. & Norenzayan, A. (2010c) The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33:61–83. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mathew, S. & Boyd, R. (2011) Punishment sustains large-scale cooperation in pre-state warfare. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 108(28):11375–80. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1105604108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meggitt, M. (1962) Desert people: A study of the Walbiri Aborigines of Central Australia. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ostrom, E., Walker, J. & Gardner, R. (1992) Covenants with and without a sword: Self-governance is possible. American Political Science Review 86(2):404–17. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1964229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, R. (2001) Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Rustagi, D., Engel, S. & Kosfeld, M. (2010) Conditional cooperation and costly monitoring explain success in forest commons management. Science 330(6006):961–65. Available at: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6006/961.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sober, E. & Wilson, D. S. (1998) Unto others: The evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Strehlow, T. G. H. (1970) Geography and the totemic landscape in Central Australia: A functional study. In: Australian aboriginal anthology: Modern studies in the social anthropology of the Australian aborigines, ed. Berndt, R. M., pp. 92–140. University of Western Australia Press.Google Scholar
West, S. A., El Mouden, C. & Gardner, A. (2011) Sixteen common misconceptions about the evolution of cooperation in humans. Evolution and Human Behavior 32(4):231–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiessner, P. (2005) Norm enforcement among the Ju/'hoansi bushmen: A case for strong reciprocity? Human Nature 16(2):115–45. Available at: http://www.springerlink.com/index/dg3m0660x4lgdl9t.pdf.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wiessner, P. (2009) Experimental games and games of life among the Ju/'hoan Bushmen. Current Anthropology 50(1):133–38. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20479691.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamagishi, T. (1986) The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51:110–16. Available at: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0022351407601885.CrossRefGoogle Scholar