IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v100y2022ics221480432200091x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sending a message or seeking retributive justice? An experimental investigation of why people punish

Author

Listed:
  • Shichman, Ruslan
  • Weiss, Avi

Abstract

Two prevailing theories exist to explain why people engage in costly punishment in one-shot interactions when they cannot expect to gain from the punishment or to affect future behavior: to achieve balance or to send a message. In this paper we constructed new versions of the Dictator, Public Good, and Power-to-Take games, designed specifically to allow us to differentiate between these explanations. The results lend some support to each of the hypotheses; on the one hand, subjects punish even when the punisher knows that the offender will never learn that he was punished, and, on the other hand, there is more punishment when the punisher knows that the offender will be informed that he is being punished than when the punisher knows that the offender will remain oblivious to the punishment. Thus, punishers seek both "retributive justice" and to "send a message" to the offending party.

Suggested Citation

  • Shichman, Ruslan & Weiss, Avi, 2022. "Sending a message or seeking retributive justice? An experimental investigation of why people punish," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:100:y:2022:i:c:s221480432200091x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2022.101918
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221480432200091X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2022.101918?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nadelhoffer, Thomas & Heshmati, Saeideh & Kaplan, Deanna & Nichols, Shaun, 2013. "Folk Retributivism And The Communication Confound," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(2), pages 235-261, July.
    2. Martin Sefton & Robert Shupp & James M. Walker, 2007. "The Effect Of Rewards And Sanctions In Provision Of Public Goods," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 45(4), pages 671-690, October.
    3. Forsythe Robert & Horowitz Joel L. & Savin N. E. & Sefton Martin, 1994. "Fairness in Simple Bargaining Experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 347-369, May.
    4. 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.
    5. Mathias Twardawski & Benjamin E Hilbig, 2020. "The motivational basis of third-party punishment in children," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-14, November.
    6. Roth, Alvin E. & Vesna Prasnikar & Masahiro Okuno-Fujiwara & Shmuel Zamir, 1991. "Bargaining and Market Behavior in Jerusalem, Ljubljana, Pittsburgh, and Tokyo: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1068-1095, December.
    7. James Andreoni & William Harbaugh & Lise Vesterlund, 2003. "The Carrot or the Stick: Rewards, Punishments, and Cooperation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 893-902, June.
    8. Bolton Gary E. & Zwick Rami, 1995. "Anonymity versus Punishment in Ultimatum Bargaining," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 95-121, July.
    9. Guth, Werner & Schmittberger, Rolf & Schwarze, Bernd, 1982. "An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 367-388, December.
    10. Julia Marshall & Daniel A. Yudkin & Molly J. Crockett, 2021. "Children punish third parties to satisfy both consequentialist and retributive motives," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(3), pages 361-368, March.
    11. Hessel Oosterbeek & Randolph Sloof & Gijs van de Kuilen, 2004. "Cultural Differences in Ultimatum Game Experiments: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 7(2), pages 171-188, June.
    12. Schotter, Andrew & Weiss, Avi & Zapater, Inigo, 1996. "Fairness and survival in ultimatum and dictatorship games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 37-56, October.
    13. Armin Falk & Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2003. "On the Nature of Fair Behavior," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(1), pages 20-26, January.
    14. Simon Gachter & Ernst Fehr, 2000. "Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 980-994, September.
    15. Binmore, K & Shaked, A & Sutton, J, 1985. "Testing Noncooperative Bargaining Theory: A Preliminary Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(5), pages 1178-1180, December.
    16. Ronald Bosman & Frans van Winden, 2002. "Emotional Hazard in a Power-to-take Experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(476), pages 147-169, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Güth, Werner & Kocher, Martin G., 2014. "More than thirty years of ultimatum bargaining experiments: Motives, variations, and a survey of the recent literature," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 396-409.
    2. Cox, James C. & Friedman, Daniel & Gjerstad, Steven, 2007. "A tractable model of reciprocity and fairness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 17-45, April.
    3. Gagen, Michael, 2013. "Isomorphic Strategy Spaces in Game Theory," MPRA Paper 46176, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Damon Tomlin, 2015. "Rational Constraints and the Evolution of Fairness in the Ultimatum Game," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-17, July.
    5. Simon Gaechter, 2014. "Human Pro-Social Motivation and the Maintenance of Social Order," CESifo Working Paper Series 4729, CESifo.
    6. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Jaume García-Segarra & Alexander Ritschel, 2018. "The Big Robber Game," ECON - Working Papers 291, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    7. Sun-Ki Chai & Dolgorsuren Dorj & Katerina Sherstyuk, 2018. "Cultural Values and Behavior in Dictator, Ultimatum, and Trust Games: An Experimental Study," Research in Experimental Economics, in: Experimental Economics and Culture, volume 20, pages 89-166, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    8. Chesney, Thomas & Chuah, Swee-Hoon & Hoffmann, Robert, 2009. "Virtual world experimentation: An exploratory study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 618-635, October.
    9. Nikos Nikiforakis & Helen Mitchell, 2014. "Mixing the carrots with the sticks: third party punishment and reward," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(1), pages 1-23, March.
    10. van Damme, Eric & Binmore, Kenneth G. & Roth, Alvin E. & Samuelson, Larry & Winter, Eyal & Bolton, Gary E. & Ockenfels, Axel & Dufwenberg, Martin & Kirchsteiger, Georg & Gneezy, Uri & Kocher, Martin G, 2014. "How Werner Güth's ultimatum game shaped our understanding of social behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 292-318.
    11. Arshad Ali Javed & Patrick T.I. Lam & Albert P.C. Chan, 2014. "Change negotiation in public-private partnership projects through output specifications: an experimental approach based on game theory," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(4), pages 323-348, April.
    12. Nathalie Colombier & David Masclet & Daniel Mirza & Claude Montmarquette, 2011. "Global Security Policies against Terrorism and the Free Riding Problem: An Experimental Approach," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 13(5), pages 755-790, October.
    13. Erik O. Kimbrough & Alexander Vostroknutov, 2016. "Norms Make Preferences Social," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 608-638, June.
    14. Bolton, Gary E. & Ockenfels, Axel, 2014. "Does laboratory trading mirror behavior in real world markets? Fair bargaining and competitive bidding on eBay," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 143-154.
    15. Stahl, Dale O. & Haruvy, Ernan, 2008. "Subgame perfection in ultimatum bargaining trees," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 292-307, May.
    16. Svetlana Pevnitskaya & Dmitry Ryvkin, 2022. "The effect of options to reward and punish on behavior in bargaining," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 171-192, February.
    17. Simon Gaechter & Benedikt Herrmann, 2008. "Reciprocity, culture, and human cooperation: Previous insights and a new cross-cultural experiment," Discussion Papers 2008-14, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    18. James Andreoni & William Harbaugh & Lise Vesterlund, 2003. "The Carrot or the Stick: Rewards, Punishments, and Cooperation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 893-902, June.
    19. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:3:p:743-765 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Danková, Katarína & Servátka, Maroš, 2015. "The house money effect and negative reciprocity," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 60-71.
    21. Shen, Junyi & Takahashi, Hiromasa, 2013. "A cash effect in ultimatum game experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 94-102.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Punishment; Dictator game; Public Good game; Power-to-take game;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eee:soceco:v:100:y:2022:i:c:s221480432200091x. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    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.