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Defectors, not norm violators, are punished by third-parties

Punishment of defectors and cooperators is prevalent when their behaviour deviates from the social norm. Why atypical behaviour is more likely to be punished than typical behaviour remains unclear. One possible proximate explanation is that individuals simply dislike norm violators. However, an alte...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Bone, Jonathan, Silva, Antonio S., Raihani, Nichola J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4126631/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25079496
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2014.0388
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author Bone, Jonathan
Silva, Antonio S.
Raihani, Nichola J.
author_facet Bone, Jonathan
Silva, Antonio S.
Raihani, Nichola J.
author_sort Bone, Jonathan
collection PubMed
description Punishment of defectors and cooperators is prevalent when their behaviour deviates from the social norm. Why atypical behaviour is more likely to be punished than typical behaviour remains unclear. One possible proximate explanation is that individuals simply dislike norm violators. However, an alternative possibility exists: individuals may be more likely to punish atypical behaviour, because the cost of punishment generally increases with the number of individuals that are punished. We used a public goods game with third-party punishment to test whether punishment of defectors was reduced when defecting was typical, as predicted if punishment is responsive to norm violation. The cost of punishment was fixed, regardless of the number of players punished, meaning that it was not more costly to punish typical, relative to atypical, behaviour. Under these conditions, atypical behaviour was not punished more often than typical behaviour. In fact, most punishment was targeted at defectors, irrespective of whether defecting was typical or atypical. We suggest that the reduced punishment of defectors when they are common might often be explained in terms of the costs to the punisher, rather than responses to norm violators.
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spelling pubmed-41266312014-08-18 Defectors, not norm violators, are punished by third-parties Bone, Jonathan Silva, Antonio S. Raihani, Nichola J. Biol Lett Animal Behaviour Punishment of defectors and cooperators is prevalent when their behaviour deviates from the social norm. Why atypical behaviour is more likely to be punished than typical behaviour remains unclear. One possible proximate explanation is that individuals simply dislike norm violators. However, an alternative possibility exists: individuals may be more likely to punish atypical behaviour, because the cost of punishment generally increases with the number of individuals that are punished. We used a public goods game with third-party punishment to test whether punishment of defectors was reduced when defecting was typical, as predicted if punishment is responsive to norm violation. The cost of punishment was fixed, regardless of the number of players punished, meaning that it was not more costly to punish typical, relative to atypical, behaviour. Under these conditions, atypical behaviour was not punished more often than typical behaviour. In fact, most punishment was targeted at defectors, irrespective of whether defecting was typical or atypical. We suggest that the reduced punishment of defectors when they are common might often be explained in terms of the costs to the punisher, rather than responses to norm violators. The Royal Society 2014-07 /pmc/articles/PMC4126631/ /pubmed/25079496 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2014.0388 Text en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ © 2014 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Animal Behaviour
Bone, Jonathan
Silva, Antonio S.
Raihani, Nichola J.
Defectors, not norm violators, are punished by third-parties
title Defectors, not norm violators, are punished by third-parties
title_full Defectors, not norm violators, are punished by third-parties
title_fullStr Defectors, not norm violators, are punished by third-parties
title_full_unstemmed Defectors, not norm violators, are punished by third-parties
title_short Defectors, not norm violators, are punished by third-parties
title_sort defectors, not norm violators, are punished by third-parties
topic Animal Behaviour
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4126631/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25079496
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2014.0388
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