Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T00:27:26.025Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The punishment that sustains cooperation is often coordinated and costly

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2012

Samuel Bowles ,
Robert Boyd ,
Sarah Mathew  and
Peter J. Richerson
Samuel Bowles
Affiliation:
Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501. samuel.bowles@gmail.comhttp://www.santafe.edu/~bowles
Robert Boyd
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California–Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095. rboyd@anthro.ucla.eduhttp://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/boyd/smathew@ucla.eduhttp://smathew.bol.ucla.edu/Site/Home.html
Sarah Mathew
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California–Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095. rboyd@anthro.ucla.eduhttp://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/boyd/smathew@ucla.eduhttp://smathew.bol.ucla.edu/Site/Home.html
Peter J. Richerson
Affiliation:
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California–Davis, Davis CA 95616. pjricherson@ucdavis.eduhttp://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/Richerson/Richerson.htm
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Experiments are not models of cooperation; instead, they demonstrate the presence of the ethical and other-regarding predispositions that often motivate cooperation and the punishment of free-riders. Experimental behavior predicts subjects' cooperation in the field. Ethnographic studies in small-scale societies without formal coercive institutions demonstrate that disciplining defectors is both essential to cooperation and often costly to the punisher.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , February 2012 , pp. 20 - 21
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

Bowles, S. & Gintis, H. (2011) A cooperative species: Human reciprocity and its evolution. Princeton University Press.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
Boyd, R., Gintis, H., Bowles, S. & Richerson, P. (2003) The evolution of altruistic punishment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100(6):3531–35. Available at: http://www.pnas.org/content/100/6/3531.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
Fehr, E. & Leibbrandt, A. (2011) A field study of cooperativeness and impatience in the Tragedy of Commons. Journal of Public Economics 95(9–10):1144–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J. & Boyd, R. (2001) Why people punish defectors: Weak conformist transmission can stabilize costly enforcement of norms in cooperative dilemmas. Journal of Theoretical Biology 208(1):79–89. Available at: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0022519300922021.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
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
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