Data from: Punishment as a means of competition: implications for strong reciprocity theory

Strong negative reciprocity, that is, sanctions imposed on norm violators at the punisher’s own expense, has powerful cooperation-enhancing effects in both real-life and experimental game situations. However, it is plausible that punishment may obtain alternative roles depending on social context and the personality characteristics of participants. We examined the occurrence of punishing behavior among 80 subjects in a strongly competitive Public Goods game setting. Despite the punishment condition, the amount of the contributions decreased steadily during the game. The amount of contributions had no significant effect on received and imposed punishments. The results indicate that certain social contexts (in this case, intensive competition) exert modifying effects on the role that punishment takes on. Subjects punished each other in order to achieve a higher rank and a financially better outcome. Punishment primarily functioned as a means of rivalry, instead of as a way of second-order cooperation, as strong reciprocity suggests. These results indicate the need for the possible modification of the social conditions of punishment mechanisms described by the strong reciprocity theory as an evolutionary explanation of human cooperation.强负互惠（Strong negative reciprocity）指以惩罚者自身承担成本为代价，对规范违反者施加的惩罚措施，其在现实生活与实验博弈两类场景中均展现出强劲的合作增进效应。然而，惩罚或可依据社会语境与参与者的人格特质发挥差异化作用，这一推测具备合理性。本研究在强竞争型公共品博弈（Public Goods game）场景下，对80名被试的惩罚行为发生情况展开了考察。尽管设置了惩罚机制，博弈过程中的捐款额度仍呈持续下降趋势。捐款额度对被试所接收及施加的惩罚均无显著影响。研究结果表明，特定社会语境（本研究中为高强度竞争）会对惩罚所承担的角色产生调节作用。被试之间实施惩罚，目的是获取更高的排名与更优的经济收益。正如强负互惠理论所揭示的，惩罚在此场景中主要作为竞争手段发挥作用，而非二阶合作的实现路径。上述研究结果表明，作为人类合作进化解释框架的强负互惠理论，其所述惩罚机制的适用社会条件或需进行修正。