More from the Author

• Article | Cognition | December 2019

  When Do We Punish People Who Don't?

  Justin W. Martin, Jillian J. Jordan, David G. Rand and Fiery Cushman

  People often punish norm violations. In what cases is such punishment viewed as normative—a behavior that we “should”or even“must”engage in? We approach this question by asking when people who fail to punish a norm violator are, themselves, punished. (For instance, a boss who fails to punish transgressive employees might,herself, befired.) We conducted experiments exploring the contexts in which higher-order punishment occurs, using both incentivized economic games and hypothetical vignettes describing everyday situations. We presented participants with cases in which an individual fails to punish a transgressor, either as a victim (second party) or as an observer (third party). Across studies, we consistently observed higher-order punishment of non-punishing observers. Higher-order punishment of non-punishing victims, however, was consistently weaker, and sometimes non-existent. These results demonstrate the selective application of higher-order punishment, provide a new perspective on the psychological mechanisms that support it, and provide some clues regarding itsfunction.

  Keywords: punishment; norms; Cooperation; Societal Protocols; Adaptation;

  Citation:

  Martin, Justin W., Jillian J. Jordan, David G. Rand, and Fiery Cushman. "When Do We Punish People Who Don't?" Cognition 193 (December 2019).  View Details

  CiteView DetailsFind at Harvard Read Now

  Related

• Comment | Nature Human Behaviour

  Which Accusations Stick?

  Jillian J. Jordan

  The social function of witchcraft accusations remains opaque. An empirical study of Chinese villagers shows that the label ‘z hu’ influences who interacts across a social network, but appears not to tag defectors in service of promoting cooperation. An open question thus remains: from witchcraft to gossip, which accusations stick?

  Keywords: Society; Reputation;

  Citation:

  Jordan, Jillian J. "Which Accusations Stick?" Nature Human Behaviour 2, no. 1 (January 2018): 19–20.  View Details

  CiteView Details Read Now

  Related

• Article | Journal of Theoretical Biology

  Third-Party Punishment as a Costly Signal of High Continuation Probabilities in Repeated Games

  Jillian J. Jordan and David G. Rand

  Why do individuals pay costs to punish selfish behavior, even as third-party observers? A large body of research suggests that reputation plays an important role in motivating such third-party punishment (TPP). Here we focus on a recently proposed reputation-based account (Jordan et al., 2016) that invokes costly signaling. This account proposed that “trustworthy type” individuals (who are incentivized to cooperate with others) typically experience lower costs of TPP, and thus that TPP can function as a costly signal of trustworthiness. Specifically, it was argued that some but not all individuals face incentives to cooperate, making them high-quality and trustworthy interaction partners; and, because the same mechanisms that incentivize cooperation also create benefits for using TPP to deter selfish behavior, these individuals are likely to experience reduced costs of punishing selfishness. Here, we extend this conceptual framework by providing a concrete, “from-the-ground-up” model demonstrating how this process could work in the context of repeated interactions incentivizing both cooperation and punishment. We show how individual differences in the probability of future interaction can create types that vary in whether they find cooperation payoff-maximizing (and thus make high-quality partners), as well as in their net costs of TPP – because a higher continuation probability increases the likelihood of receiving rewards from the victim of the punished transgression (thus offsetting the cost of punishing). We also provide a simple model of dispersal that demonstrates how types that vary in their continuation probabilities can stably coexist, because the payoff from remaining in one’s local environment (i.e. not dispersing) decreases with the number of others who stay. Together, this model demonstrates, from the group up, how TPP can serve as a costly signal of trustworthiness arising from exposure to repeated interactions.

  Keywords: direct reciprocity; evolution; dispersal; Cooperation; Trust; Reputation; Game Theory;

  Citation:

  Jordan, Jillian J., and David G. Rand. "Third-Party Punishment as a Costly Signal of High Continuation Probabilities in Repeated Games." Journal of Theoretical Biology 421 (May 21, 2017): 189–202.  View Details

  CiteView Details Read Now

  Related