title: Social image concerns promote cooperation more than altruistic punishment.
abstract: Human cooperation is enigmatic, as organisms are expected, by evolutionary and economic theory, to act principally in their own interests. However, cooperation requires individuals to sacrifice resources for each other's benefit. We conducted a series of novel experiments in a foraging society where social institutions make the study of social image and punishment particularly salient. Participants played simple cooperation games where they could punish non-cooperators, promote a positive social image or do so in combination with one another. We show that although all these mechanisms raise cooperation above baseline levels, only when social image alone is at stake do average economic gains rise significantly above baseline. Punishment, either alone or combined with social image building, yields lower gains. Individuals' desire to establish a positive social image thus emerges as a more decisive factor than punishment in promoting human cooperation.
authors: Institute for the World Economy, Kiellinie 66, 24105 Kiel, Germany.|Universitat Jaume I, Avenida Sos Baynat, 12071 Castelló de la Plana, Spain.|Centre for Global Cooperation Research, University of Duisburg-Essen, Schifferstrasse 196, 47059 Duisburg, Germany.
authors: Gianluca
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5605-5591
authors: G
authors: Grimalda
authors: Institute for the World Economy, Kiellinie 66, 24105 Kiel, Germany.
authors: Andreas
authors: A
authors: Pondorfer
authors: Department of Health and Behavioral Sciences, University of Colorado Denver, Campus Box 188, PO Box 173364, Denver, Colorado 80217-3364, USA.
authors: David P
authors: DP
authors: Tracer
mesh_terms: D000533:Altruism; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D005716:Game Theory; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011678:Punishment; D061108:Social Media