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Dryad

Data from: Antisocial punishment across societies

Cite this dataset

Herrmann, Benedikt; Thöni, Christian; Gächter, Simon (2017). Data from: Antisocial punishment across societies [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.87301

Abstract

We document the widespread existence of antisocial punishment, that is, the sanctioning of people who behave prosocially. Our evidence comes from public goods experiments that we conducted in 16 comparable participant pools around the world. However, there is a huge cross-societal variation. Some participant pools punished the high contributors as much as they punished the low contributors, whereas in others people only punished low contributors. In some participant pools, antisocial punishment was strong enough to remove the cooperation-enhancing effect of punishment. We also show that weak norms of civic cooperation and the weakness of the rule of law in a country are significant predictors of antisocial punishment. Our results show that punishment opportunities are socially beneficial only if complemented by strong social norms of cooperation.

Usage notes

Location

Ukraine
United Kingdom
Unites States of America
Belarus
Switzerland
Oman
Russia
Greece
Saudi Arabia
South Korea
Turkey
China
Denmark
Australia
Germany