The dark side of altruistic third-party punishment

This article experimentally studies punishment from unaffected third parties in ten different games. The authors show that third-party punishment exhibits several features that are arguably undesirable. First, third parties punish strongly a decider if she chooses a socially efficient or a Pareto ef...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: López Pérez, Raúl, Leibbrandt, Andreas
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2011
País:España
Institución:Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Repositorio:Biblos-e Archivo. Repositorio Institucional de la UAM
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.uam.es:10486/667075
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10486/667075
https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022002711408010
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Altruistic punishment
Efficiency
Inequity-aversion
Third parties
Economía
Sociología
Descripción
Sumario:This article experimentally studies punishment from unaffected third parties in ten different games. The authors show that third-party punishment exhibits several features that are arguably undesirable. First, third parties punish strongly a decider if she chooses a socially efficient or a Pareto efficient allocation and becomes the richest party as a result. Interestingly, this form of punishment is especially pronounced in women and more left-wing participants. Second, third parties punish strongly a decider if she chooses an equitable allocation and becomes the richest party as a result. Finally, third parties considerably punish passive parties who make no choice, especially if the latter are richer than the third party. Implications of these findings for social theory are discussed.