Centralized sanctioning and legitimate authority promote cooperation in humans.

ABSTRACT: Social sanctioning is widely considered a successful strategy to promote cooperation among humans. In situations in which individual and collective interests are at odds, incentives to free-ride induce individuals to refrain from contributing to public goods provision. Experimental evidence from public goods games shows that when endowed with sanctioning powers, conditional cooperators can discipline defectors, thus leading to greater levels of cooperation. However, extant evidence is based on peer punishment institutions, whereas in complex societies, systems of control are often centralized: for instance, we do not sanction our neighbors for driving too fast, the police do. Here we show the effect of centralized sanctioning and legitimate authority on cooperation. We designed an adaptati

SUBMITTER: Baldassarri D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3131358 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature