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Altruistic Norm Enforcement and Decision-Making Format in a Dilemma: Experimental Evidence

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  • Kamei, Kenju

Abstract

Past research has shown that people often take punitive actions towards norm violators even when they are not directly involved in transactions. However, it at the same time suggests that such third-party punishment may not be strong enough to enforce cooperation norms in dilemma situations. This paper experimentally compares the effectiveness of third-party punishment between different enforcement formats. Consistent with past studies, our data shows that having an individual third-party punisher in a group does not make one’s defection materially unbeneficial because of the weak punishment intensity. It also shows that third-party punishment is not effective when two individuals form a pair as a punisher and jointly decide how strong third-party punishment they impose. However, third-party punishment can be sufficiently strong to enforce cooperation norms when a third-party punisher’s action choice is made known to another individual third-party punisher in a different group, or when there are two independent individual third-party players in a group.

Suggested Citation

  • Kamei, Kenju, 2017. "Altruistic Norm Enforcement and Decision-Making Format in a Dilemma: Experimental Evidence," MPRA Paper 76641, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:76641
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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Kenju Kamei, 2021. "Teams Do Inflict Costly Third-Party Punishment as Individuals Do: Experimental Evidence," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11, March.
    4. Kenju Kamei, 2017. "Conditional Punishment in England," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(2), pages 837-845.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    experiment; cooperation; dilemma; third-party punishment; social norms;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D79 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Other
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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