Recent behavioral experiments aimed at understanding the evolutionary foundations of human cooperation have suggested that a willingness to engage in costly punishment, even in one-shot situations, may be part of human psychology and a key element in understanding our sociality. However, because most experiments have been confined to students in industrialized societies, generalizations of these insights to the species have necessarily been tentative. Here, experimental results from 15 diverse populations show that (i) all populations demonstrate some willingness to administer costly punishment as unequal behavior increases, (ii) the magnitude of this punishment varies substantially across populations, and (iii) costly punishment positively covaries with altruistic behavior across populations. These findings are consistent with models of the gene-culture coevolution of human altruism and further sharpen what any theory of human cooperation needs to explain.
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Article Synopsis
- The conflict between individual and collective interests complicates cooperation in societies, requiring costly sanctioning institutions to enforce rules.
- Improvements to the N-person prisoner's dilemma, such as reducing overpunishment and requiring minimum contributions, can help manage these institutions better.
- In large communities, by imposing fines on non-contributors, a stable group of contributors can emerge, but in finite populations, random demographic changes can also influence the success of strategies that focus on public goods over sanctioning institutions.
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