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The strategic logic of costly punishment necessitates natural field experiments, and at least one such experiment exists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2012

Tim Johnson
Tim Johnson
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; Atkinson Graduate School of Management, Willamette University, Salem, OR 97301. timj@stanford.eduwww.stanford.edu/~timj
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Abstract

Costly punishment's scarcity “in the wild” does not belie strong reciprocity theory as Guala claims. In the presence of strong reciprocators, strategic defectors will cooperate and sanctioning will not occur. Accordingly, natural field experiments are necessary to assess a “wide” reading of costly punishment experiments. One such field experiment exists, and it supports the hypothesis that costly punishment promotes cooperation.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , February 2012 , pp. 31 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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