Costless Messages Outperform Altruistic Punishment

Yuval Samid*, Ramzi Suleiman†,

Tali Rainfeld-Rachlevsky† & Amir Hayek

* Independent Researcher, 16 Shazar St., Haifa, Israel .† University of Haifa, Department of Psychology, Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel.

‡ MCE-Systems, 51 Hamasger St, Tel-Aviv, Israel .

We thank Keren Guz, Maayan Armelin, Fadi Farraj, Dina Baransi, Tamar Karanik and Maital Erlichman for their help in running the experiments

Paper presented at the ESA Regional Meeting Europe 2009, Innsbruck, Austria, SEPTEMBER 17-20

Studies on human cooperation show that, unlike

other creatures, cooperation is frequent among

genetically unrelated strangers, in non-repeated

interactions and when gains from reputation are

small or absent. Cooperation in these situations

can be explained by altruistic punishment (Fehr

& Gächter, 2002).

Previous research have demonstrated that:

Individuals engage in altruistic punishment, although it is costly.

Negative emotions towards defectors are the proximate mechanism behind altruistic punishment.

Altruistic punishment evolves even in large groups engaged in one-time, anonymous interactions.

Cooperation flourishes if altruistic punishment is possible, and breaks down if it is ruled out.

Source: Fehr & Gächter, 2002

Punishment has some serious drawbacks:

1) It is costly to punishers, hence it creates a second-order social dilemma (Yamagishi, 1987; Hauert et al., Science, 2007).

2) It bears no educational value. When punishment is terminated, the achieved cooperation is extinguished (Estes, 1944).

3) It undermines trust and confidence in voluntary cooperation (Mulder et. al., 2006)

In view of the disadvantages of

punishment, we replaced the option of

punishing other group members with the

option of sending them costless, freely

written messages.

Possible advantages of messages over punishment:

1. Since messages are costless, they can yield higher profits than the payoffs obtained by punishment.

2. While punishment can only serve as negative reinforcement, messages can be used as both positive and negative reinforcements.

3. Messages can bear an additional informative value, which might be beneficial for organizing cooperation.

4. Messages have an educational value, therefore their long-term effect on cooperation may be more pronounced than punishment.

Hypothesis:

1. Messages will be frequently used and will be addressed to both defectors (negative verbal reinforcement) and cooperators (positive verbal reinforcement).

2. The use of messages will enhance cooperation, or at least maintain it at its initial level.

3. When the option for sending messages is ruled out, cooperation will not brake down (educational effect).

4. Sending messages could yield higher profits than punishment.

First we replicated Fehr & Gächter’s (2002) Altruistic Punishment experiment.

But punishment was not as effective.

The weak punishment effect is attributed to cultural differences in punishing behavior (Herrmann, Thöni, Gächter, Science 2008, )

The effect of cultural differences in punishing behavior on cooperation in a public goods dilemma (Herrmann, Thöni, Gächter, Science, 2008).

For the punishment condition at Haifa, the average contribution was 9.3(MU), which puts us between Istanbul and Muscat.

Without punishment the cultural differences are less evident.

This cultural differences can be seen in the amount of punishment allocated to cooperators (also called Anti-social punishment).

• In comparison with Zurich (Fehr &

Gächter, 2002), punishment expenditure was significantly higher at Haifa, 2.95 points per trial at Haifa, compared to 2.07 at Zurich (Z = -2.51, P = 0.006, two-tailed Wilcoxon Two-Sample Test).

• When comparing the allocation of punishment between free-riders and cooperators, we observe that higher levels of anti-social punishment were allotted in Haifa (χ2

(1) = 3.59, P = 0.0582, GEE

Analysis).

This cultural differences in Anti-social punishment

Expenditure on punishment as a function of the deviation of the contribution of the punished group member from the mean contribution of the other group members.

Negative deviations = Free-riders – both slopes and difference between slopes are significantPositive deviations = Cooperators – difference between slopes is significant

Punishing behavior: Mean punishment expenditures for a given deviation from the punisher’s contribution.

Results of the message condition

With messages

Without messages

Mean contribution in the Message and Control condition

Without messages

With messages

Comparison of punishment, messages and control conditions

Comparison of the net profits in all conditions at Haifa and Zurich

Frequencies of messages and punishment utilization.

Place Condition Yes No Total

Messages 2,299 2,021 4,32053% 47%

Punishment 738 1,422 2,16034% 66%

Punishment 1,270 2,918 4,18830% 70%

Haifa

Zurich

Utilized

Negative Neutral Positive Total

Number of messages: 1250 325 724 2299

Distribution of reinfocment types: 54% 14% 31% 2299

Utilization of reinforcement types (in %): 29% 8% 17% 4320

Type of Reinforcement

Examples of “anti-social” messages

• Well done! But in the end you will loose a lot of money

• Ooopss, try to be smart not righteous

• You even don’t know who I am. Start living for yourself, and not for others

• 15 is agreed by all (sent to participants who contributed 20)

• Optimism is nice!

1. Messages will be frequently used and will be addressed to both defectors and cooperators.

Hypothesis:

2. The use of messages will enhance cooperation, or at least maintain it at its initial level.

4. Even if less effective than punishment, sending messages could yield higher profits than punishment.

3. When the option for sending messages is ruled out, cooperation will not brake down (educational effect).

Confirmed

Confirmed

Rejected

Confirmed

Summary and Main Conclusions

1. Punishment in Haifa was not effective.

2. Verbal messages in Haifa outperformed altruistic punishment.

4. A Combination of punishment and messages could prove cost-efficient.

3. It remains to investigate whether verbal messages outperform altruistic punishment in cultures with documented punishment efficacy.

Thank you for listening