Vengefulness Evolves in Small Groups

After a century of neglect, economists since the 1980s have begun to write extensively about social preferences. The vast majority of the articles so far have focused on altruism or positive reciprocity. Only a few examine the dark side — negative reciprocity or vengefulness. When a person harms you (or your family or friends), you may choose to incur a substantial personal cost to harm that person in return. Vengeance deserves serious study because it has major economic and social consequences, both positive and negative. For example, workers’ negative reciprocity at the Decatur plant threatened to bring down Firestone Tyres (Krueger and Mas, 2004); terrorists often explain their actions as revenge against the oppressor; and successful corporate cultures succeed in forestalling petty acts of vengeance and other sorts of dysfunctional office politics.