Reward and Punishment in Social Dilemmas

One of the key scientific challenges is the puzzle of human cooperation. Why do people cooperate? Why do people help strangers, even sometimes at a major cost to themselves? Why do people want to punish others who violate norms and undermine collective interests? Reward and punishment is a classic theme in research on social dilemmas. More recently, it has received considerable attention from scientists working in various disciplines such as economics, neuroscience, and psychology. We know now that reward and punishment can promote cooperation in so-called public good dilemmas, where people need to decide how much from their personal resources to contribute to the public good. Clearly, enjoying the contributions of others while not contributing is tempting. Punishment (and reward) are effective in reducing free-riding. Yet the recent explosion of research has also triggered many questions. For example, who can reward and punish most effectively? Is punishment effective in any culture? What are the emotions that accompany reward and punishment? Even if reward and punishment are effective, are they also efficient -- knowing that rewards and punishment are costly to administer? How can sanctioning systems best organized to be reduce free-riding? The chapters in this book, the first in a series on human cooperation, explore the workings of reward and punishment, how they should be organized, and their functions in society, thereby providing a synthesis of the psychology, economics, and neuroscience of human cooperation. Contributors to this volume - Paul A. M. Van Lange Department of Social Psychology VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands Bettina Rockenbach Economic and Social Sciences Department University of Cologne Cologne, Germany Toshio Yamagishi Department of Behavioral Science The University of Tokyo Tokyo, Japan Louis Putterman Department of Economics Brown University Providence, Rhode Island Daniel Balliet Department of Social Psychology VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands Pontus Strimling Center for Studies of Cultural Evolution Stockholm University Stockholm, Sweden Kimmo Eriksson Department of Mathematics Malardalen University Vasteras, Sweden Eric van Dijk Department of Social and Organizational Psychology Leiden University Leiden, The Netherlands Laetitia B. Mulder Department of Business and Economics Groningen University Groningen, The Netherlands Erik W. de Kwaadsteniet Department of Social and Organizational Psychology Leiden University Leiden, The Netherlands Daniele Nosenzo School of Economics University of Nottingham Nottingham, United Kingdom Martin Sefton School of Economics University of Nottingham Nottingham, United Kingdom Xiao-Ping Chen Department of Management and Organization, Michael G. Foster School of Business University of Washington Seattle, Washington Carolyn T. Dang Department of Management and Organization, Michael G. Foster School of Business University of Washington Seattle, Washington Fong Keng-Highberger Department of Management and Organization, Michael G. Foster School of Business University of Washington Seattle, Washington Matthias Sutter Department of Public Finance University of Innsbruck and University of Gothenburg Innsbruck, Austria M. Fernanda Rivas Economics Program Middle East Technical University Northern Cyprus Campus Eveline A. Crone Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology Leiden University Leiden, The Netherlands Geert-Jan Will Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology Leiden University Leiden, The Netherlands Sandy Overgaauw Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology Leiden University Leiden, The Netherlands Berna Guroglu Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology Leiden University Leiden, The Netherlands Pat Barclay Department of Psychology University of Guelph Guelph, Canada Toko Kiyonari School of Social Informatics Aoyama Gakuin University Kanagawa, Japan Nikos Nikiforakis Department of Economics The University of Melbourne Melbourne, Australia Pierre Lienard Department of Anthropology University of Nevada Las Vegas, Nevada