Spite and preemptive retaliation after tournaments

We investigated money burning after tournaments. First, we show that substantial money burning was triggered if participants perceived a situation as competitive. Second, we investigated to which extent aggression between former contestants was motivated by preemptive retaliation or spite. To disentangle both motives, we introduced a credible and visible self-binding signal. Contrary to previous studies, we found that aggression against a defenceless subject played an important role. Preemptive retaliation proved to be another dominant motive. We conclude that voluntary self-binding signals may have the potential to mitigate but not eliminate antisocial behavior after a competition, because it seems to be driven by spite to a large extent. Our results help us to better understand and eventually mitigate destructive behavior in work environments.