What is it about?
The threat of retaliation can prevent individuals from punishing those who act against the best interest of the group. We aimed to see whether “powerful” individuals – those immune to retaliation – would help police group behaviour. While there was some evidence of "policing" by the powerful individuals, surprisingly we found that cooperation was lower in groups that contained these powerful individuals as they used their immunity to behave selfishly.
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Why is it important?
Our findings demonstrate that concentrating the power to punish in a few (or single) individuals - something often seen as beneficial to group cooperation - can have negative consequences as it allows individuals to behave selfishly. The results might also help us understand how and why humans transitioned from egalitarian small-scale societies to the more highly stratified ones that emerged with the agricultural revolution.
Perspectives
We hope the findings of the article appeal to both researcher in the field of cooperation and to a wider audience interested in power and human social behaviour. Many of our findings are very much embedded within the study of the evolution of cooperation, but the general finding that immunity from censure or punishment by ones group leads to selfish - potentially 'corrupt' - behavior we hope will be of general interest. There are certainly parallels to be drawn between the behaviour of our "powerful" participants and how power is used in the real world.
David Gordon
University of Chester
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: High cooperation and welfare despite—and because of—the threat of antisocial punishments and feuds., Journal of Experimental Psychology General, July 2021, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/xge0001004.
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