Costly Punishment Across Human Societies
California Institute of Technology · Emory University · +10 more institutions
Abstract
Recent behavioral experiments aimed at understanding the evolutionary foundations of human cooperation have suggested that a willingness to engage in costly punishment, even in one-shot situations, may be part of human psychology and a key element in understanding our sociality. However, because most experiments have been confined to students in industrialized societies, generalizations of these insights to the species have necessarily been tentative. Here, experimental results from 15 diverse populations show that (i) all populations demonstrate some willingness to administer costly punishment as unequal behavior increases, (ii) the magnitude of this punishment varies substantially across populations, and…
Citation impact
- FWCI
- 204.50
- Percentile
- 100%
- References
- 30
Authors
14- JHJoseph HenrichCorresponding
California Institute of Technology, Emory University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Oxford, University of California, Davis
- RMRichard McElreath
California Institute of Technology, Emory University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Oxford, University of California, Davis
- ABAbigail Barr
California Institute of Technology, Emory University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Oxford, University of California, Davis
- JEJean Ensminger
California Institute of Technology, Emory University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Oxford, University of California, Davis
- CBClark Barrett
California Institute of Technology, Emory University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Oxford, University of California, Davis
Topics & keywords
- Sociality
- Punishment (psychology)
- Altruism (biology)
- Coevolution
- Social psychology
- Psychology
- Biology
- Ecology