goodenomics™

The evidence

Third-party punishment: paying to punish a stranger

You were not cheated. You only watched someone treat a stranger unfairly. Punishing them will cost you, and nobody will thank you.

A scene from The Distribution, the journey where the game asks this question.
A scene from the game, as it is drawn: one handwritten line at a time.

Third-party punishment

Paying to punish someone who treated a stranger unfairly, though it costs you, helps no one directly and no one will know.

What the study found

In Fehr and Fischbacher’s experiments, a bystander with money of their own watched one stranger decide how much of a sum to give another, and could pay to cut the first stranger’s share, each unit spent removing three. Almost two-thirds punished those who broke the norm of sharing, and they punished harder the less was shared.

Source: Fehr, E., & Fischbacher, U. (2004). Third-party punishment and social norms. Evolution and Human Behavior 25(2), 63-87. econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:zur:iewwpx:106

How to read this

These are the answers of particular people, asked in a particular way, at a particular time. A share of people is not a verdict: it tells you what they answered, not what is right.

Where the game asks it

The Distribution (What does fairness require?). The game’s versions with family, age, consent and combined pressures are new comparisons written for it. They are not copies of the experiments, and no population percentages are claimed for them.

Play The Distribution Free. No account. Your place is saved on your device.

More evidence