The Importance of Emotions for the Effectiveness of Social Punishment

Astrid Hopfensitz and Ernesto Reuben

Economic Journal, 2009, vol. 119, issue 540, 1534-1559

Abstract: This article experimentally explores how the enforcement of cooperative behaviour in a social dilemma is facilitated through institutional as well as emotional mechanisms. Recent studies emphasise the importance of anger and its role in motivating individuals to punish free riders. However, we find that anger also triggers retaliatory behaviour by the punished individuals. This makes the enforcement of a cooperative norm more costly. We show that in addition to anger, 'social' emotions like guilt need to be present for punishment to be an effective deterrent of uncooperative actions. They play a key role by subduing the desire of punished individuals to retaliate and by motivating them to behave more cooperatively in the future. Copyright © The Author(s). Journal compilation © Royal Economic Society 2009.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (132)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: The Importance of Emotions for the Effectiveness of Social Punishment (2009)
Working Paper: The Importance of Emotions for the Effectiveness of Social Punishment (2006)
Working Paper: The Importance of Emotions for the Effectiveness of Social Punishment (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:119:y:2009:i:540:p:1534-1559

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... al.asp?ref=0013-0133

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Journal is currently edited by Martin Cripps, Steve Machin, Woulter den Haan, Andrea Galeotti, Rachel Griffith and Frederic Vermeulen

More articles in Economic Journal from Royal Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing () and Christopher F. Baum ().