IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jgames/v12y2021i1p22-d509478.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Teams Do Inflict Costly Third-Party Punishment as Individuals Do: Experimental Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Kenju Kamei

    (Department of Economics and Finance, Durham University Business School, Mill Hill Lane, Durham DH1 3LB, UK)

Abstract

Initiated by the seminal work of Fehr and Fischbacher (Evolution and Human Behavior (2004)), a large body of research has shown that people often take punitive actions towards norm violators even when they are not directly involved in transactions. This paper shows in an experimental setting that this behavioral finding extends to a situation where a pair of individuals jointly decides how strong a third-party punishment to impose. It also shows that this punishment behavior is robust to the size of social distance within pairs. These results lend useful insight since decisions in our everyday lives and also in courts are often made by teams.

Suggested Citation

  • Kenju Kamei, 2021. "Teams Do Inflict Costly Third-Party Punishment as Individuals Do: Experimental Evidence," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:12:y:2021:i:1:p:22-:d:509478
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/12/1/22/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/12/1/22/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kamei, Kenju, 2020. "Group size effect and over-punishment in the case of third party enforcement of social norms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 395-412.
    2. Jean Tirole & Roland Bénabou, 2006. "Incentives and Prosocial Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1652-1678, December.
    3. Kenju Kamei, 2019. "The power of joint decision-making in a finitely-repeated dilemma," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(3), pages 600-622.
    4. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    5. Martin Kocher & Matthias Sutter, 2007. "Individual versus group behavior and the role of the decision making procedure in gift-exchange experiments," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 63-88, March.
    6. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    7. repec:cup:judgdm:v:4:y:2009:i:7:p:543-553 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Maria R D'Orsogna & Ryan Kendall & Michael McBride & Martin B Short, 2013. "Criminal Defectors Lead to the Emergence of Cooperation in an Experimental, Adversarial Game," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(4), pages 1-9, April.
    9. Kenju Kamei & Louis Putterman & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2015. "State or nature? Endogenous formal versus informal sanctions in the voluntary provision of public goods," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(1), pages 38-65, March.
    10. Fehr, Ernst & Schmidt, Klaus M., 2006. "The Economics of Fairness, Reciprocity and Altruism - Experimental Evidence and New Theories," Handbook on the Economics of Giving, Reciprocity and Altruism, in: S. Kolm & Jean Mercier Ythier (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 8, pages 615-691, Elsevier.
    11. Kamei, Kenju, 2017. "Altruistic Norm Enforcement and Decision-Making Format in a Dilemma: Experimental Evidence," MPRA Paper 76641, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Putterman, Louis & Tyran, Jean-Robert & Kamei, Kenju, 2011. "Public goods and voting on formal sanction schemes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9), pages 1213-1222.
    13. Gary Charness & Matthias Sutter, 2012. "Groups Make Better Self-Interested Decisions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 157-176, Summer.
    14. Kamei, Kenju, 2018. "The role of visibility on third party punishment actions for the enforcement of social norms," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 193-197.
    15. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, "undated". "Third Party Punishment and Social Norms," IEW - Working Papers 106, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    16. Dan Ariely & Anat Bracha & Stephan Meier, 2009. "Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 544-555, March.
    17. Tamar Kugler & Edgar E. Kausel & Martin G. Kocher, 2012. "Are Groups more Rational than Individuals? A Review of Interactive Decision Making in Groups," CESifo Working Paper Series 3701, CESifo.
    18. Helen Bernhard & Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2006. "Group Affiliation and Altruistic Norm Enforcement," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 217-221, May.
    19. Cason, Timothy N & Mui, Vai-Lam, 1997. "A Laboratory Study of Group Polarisation in the Team Dictator Game," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(444), pages 1465-1483, September.
    20. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2004. "Social norms and human cooperation," Macroeconomics 0409026, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Ertan, Arhan & Page, Talbot & Putterman, Louis, 2009. "Who to punish? Individual decisions and majority rule in mitigating the free rider problem," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(5), pages 495-511, July.
    22. Ananish Chaudhuri, 2011. "Sustaining cooperation in laboratory public goods experiments: a selective survey of the literature," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(1), pages 47-83, March.
    23. Jillian Jordan & Katherine McAuliffe & David Rand, 2016. "The effects of endowment size and strategy method on third party punishment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(4), pages 741-763, December.
    24. Bock, Olaf & Baetge, Ingmar & Nicklisch, Andreas, 2014. "hroot: Hamburg Registration and Organization Online Tool," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 117-120.
    25. Gillet, Joris & Schram, Arthur & Sonnemans, Joep, 2009. "The tragedy of the commons revisited: The importance of group decision-making," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 785-797, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Im, Changkuk & Lee, Jinkwon, 2022. "On the fragility of third-party punishment: The context effect of a dominated risky investment option," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    2. Kamei, Kenju & Tabero, Katy, 2021. "The Individual-Team Discontinuity Effect on Institutional Choices: Experimental Evidence in Voluntary Public Goods Provision," MPRA Paper 112106, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Kenju Kamei & Smriti Sharma & Matthew J. Walker, 2023. "Sanction Enforcement among Third Parties:New Experimental Evidence from Two Societies," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2023-010, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kamei, Kenju, 2017. "Altruistic Norm Enforcement and Decision-Making Format in a Dilemma: Experimental Evidence," MPRA Paper 76641, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Kamei, Kenju & Tabero, Katy, 2021. "The Individual-Team Discontinuity Effect on Institutional Choices: Experimental Evidence in Voluntary Public Goods Provision," MPRA Paper 112106, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Kenju Kamei & Smriti Sharma & Matthew J. Walker, 2023. "Collective Sanction Enforcement: New Experimental Evidence from Two Societies," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2023-014, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    4. Kenju Kamei & Smriti Sharma & Matthew J. Walker, 2023. "Sanction Enforcement among Third Parties:New Experimental Evidence from Two Societies," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2023-010, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    5. KAMEI Kenju, 2022. "Self-regulatory Resources and Institutional Formation: A first experimental test," Discussion papers 22084, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    6. Kamei, Kenju, 2020. "Group size effect and over-punishment in the case of third party enforcement of social norms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 395-412.
    7. Kamei, Kenju, 2024. "Self-regulatory resources and institutional formation: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 354-374.
    8. Jan Philipp Krügel & Nicola Maaser, 2020. "Cooperation and Norm-Enforcement under Impartial vs. Competitive Sanctions," Economics Working Papers 2020-15, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    9. Marcin, Isabel & Robalo, Pedro & Tausch, Franziska, 2019. "Institutional endogeneity and third-party punishment in social dilemmas," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 243-264.
    10. He, Haoran & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2017. "Are group members less inequality averse than individual decision makers?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 111-124.
    11. Müller, Wieland & Tan, Fangfang, 2013. "Who acts more like a game theorist? Group and individual play in a sequential market game and the effect of the time horizon," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 658-674.
    12. Tan, Fangfang & Xiao, Erte, 2018. "Third-party punishment: Retribution or deterrence?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 34-46.
    13. Christens, Sven & Dannenberg, Astrid & Sachs, Florian, 2019. "Identification of individuals and groups in a public goods experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    14. Faralla, Valeria & Borà, Guido & Innocenti, Alessandro & Novarese, Marco, 2020. "Promises in group decision making," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 1-11.
    15. Heinicke, Franziska & König-Kersting, Christian & Schmidt, Robert, 2022. "Injunctive vs. descriptive social norms and reference group dependence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 199-218.
    16. Blanco, Esther & Struwe, Natalie & Walker, James M., 2021. "Experimental evidence on sharing rules and additionality in transfer payments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 1221-1247.
    17. Deffains, Bruno & Espinosa, Romain & Fluet, Claude, 2019. "Laws and norms: Experimental evidence with liability rules," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    18. Sven Christens & Astrid Dannenberg & Florian Sachs, 2017. "Identification of individuals and groups in a public goods experiment," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201755, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    19. Auerswald, Heike & Schmidt, Carsten & Thum, Marcel & Torsvik, Gaute, 2018. "Teams in a public goods experiment with punishment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 28-39.
    20. Haoran He & Marie Claire Villeval, 2014. "Are teams less inequality averse than individuals?," Post-Print halshs-01077253, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:12:y:2021:i:1:p:22-:d:509478. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.