Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 278, Issue 1715, Pages 2159-2164Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2010.2342
Keywords
altruism; cooperation; experimental economics games; punishment; spite
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [0136761]
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie
- Division Of Behavioral and Cognitive Sci [0136761] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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We analyse generosity, second-party ('spiteful') punishment (2PP), and third-party ('altruistic') punishment (3PP) in a cross-cultural experimental economics project. We show that smaller societies are less generous in the Dictator Game but no less prone to 2PP in the Ultimatum Game. We might assume people everywhere would be more willing to punish someone who hurt them directly (2PP) than someone who hurt an anonymous third person (3PP). While this is true of small societies, people in large societies are actually more likely to engage in 3PP than 2PP. Strong reciprocity, including generous offers and 3PP, exists mostly in large, complex societies that face numerous challenging collective action problems. We argue that 'spiteful' 2PP, motivated by the basic emotion of anger, is more universal than 3PP and sufficient to explain the origins of human cooperation.
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