The economics of altruistic punishment and the maintenance of cooperation.

ABSTRACT: Explaining the evolution and maintenance of cooperation among unrelated individuals is one of the fundamental problems in biology and the social sciences. Recent findings suggest that altruistic punishment is an important mechanism maintaining cooperation among humans. We experimentally explore the boundaries of altruistic punishment to maintain cooperation by varying both the cost and the impact of punishment, using an exceptionally extensive subject pool. Our results show that cooperation is only maintained if conditions for altruistic punishment are relatively favourable: low cost for the punisher and high impact on the punished. Our results indicate that punishment is strongly governed by its cost-to-impact ratio and that its effect on cooperation can be pinned down to one single varia

SUBMITTER: Egas M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2599936 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature