title: The punishment that sustains cooperation is often coordinated and costly.
abstract: Experiments are not models of cooperation; instead, they demonstrate the presence of the ethical and other-regarding predispositions that often motivate cooperation and the punishment of free-riders. Experimental behavior predicts subjects' cooperation in the field. Ethnographic studies in small-scale societies without formal coercive institutions demonstrate that disciplining defectors is both essential to cooperation and often costly to the punisher.
authors.affiliation: Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA. samuel.bowles@gmail.com
authors.forename: Samuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bowles
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Boyd
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mathew
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Richerson
mesh_terms: D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005716:Game Theory; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011678:Punishment / Q000523:psychology*; D012919:Social Behavior