Third-party punishment: Retribution or deterrence?

Fangfang Tan and Erte Xiao

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2018, vol. 67, issue C, 34-46

Abstract: We conduct an experiment to examine the role of retribution and deterrence in motivating third-party punishment. Specifically, we examine how these two motives may play different roles depending on whether a third party is a group or an individual. In a one-shot prisoner’s dilemma game with third-party punishment, we find that groups are more likely to punish when the penalty embeds deterrence rather than mere retribution. By contrast, when individual third parties make punishment decisions, they appear to give little weight to the deterrent effect of the punishment. In general, groups are less likely than individuals to impose punishment, even though the punishment is costless for third parties. However, decision-makers in the prisoner’s dilemma game do not distinguish between an individual third party and a group third party.

Keywords: Third-party punishment; Group decision-making; Retribution; Deterrence; Social dilemmas; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 D63 D70 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Third-Party Punishment: Retribution or Deterrence? (2019)
Working Paper: Third-Party Punishment: Retribution or Deterrence? (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:67:y:2018:i:c:p:34-46

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2018.03.003

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