Consensual punishment does not promote cooperation in the six-person prisoner's dilemma game with noisy public monitoring.

ABSTRACT: We study the effects of different punishment institutions on cooperation in a six-person prisoner's dilemma game in which actors observe others' cooperation with some noise (i.e. imperfect public monitoring). Previous research has shown that peer punishment can sustain cooperation, if a certain proportion of group members punish defectors at a cost to themselves. However, in the presence of noise, co-operators will sometimes be mistaken for defectors and punished, and defectors will sometimes be mistaken for co-operators and escape punishment. Both types of mistakes are detrimental for cooperation because cooperation is discouraged and defection is encouraged. By means of a laboratory experiment, we study whether this adverse effect of noise can be mitigated by consensual punishment. The m

SUBMITTER: van Miltenburg N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5703489 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature