These differences in pair outcomes resulted from substantial caste differences in individual behavior. Even in the first period of the game, 68 percent of low-caste subjects play _Stag_ compared to only 53 percent of high-caste subjects. This difference is modest, however, in comparison with the differences in behavior that emerged in response to the history of play. A natural descriptive statistic to consider is the likelihood that an individual attempts efficient coordination conditional on the previous period’s outcome. For example, if players coordinate on ( _Stag_ , _Stag_ ), one might suppose that the players would be very likely to play _Stag_ again, thereby sustaining the efficient convention. This is indeed the case: for every pair of caste statuses, almost 90 percent of individuals play _Stag_ after efficient coordination. In fact, there is only one outcome after which the caste difference in behavior is statistically significant: the outcome in which a player receives the loser’s payoff. In this event, 72 percent of low-caste players choose _Stag_ again, versus 42 percent of high-caste players. This difference is even starker if one compares same-caste pairs: 68 percent of low-caste subjects with lowcaste partners will play _Stag_ after the loser’s payoff, versus only 32 percent of high-caste subjects with high-caste partners, a difference of 36 percentage points! Caste differences after all other one-period histories are much smaller and statistically insignificant. The same qualitative results obtain in regressions that add proxies for education and wealth.

Why do high- and low-caste men behave so differently after obtaining the loser’s payoff? We hypothesize that this difference is due to the culture of honor that is typical of the high castes of northern India but not of low castes (Khare, 1984; Mandelbaum, 1993). The culture of honor has been well-documented by anthropologists and sociologists and has been observed among groups all over the world and throughout history, including in northern India, Mediterranean societies, Saudi Arabia, many of the traditional societies of Eurasia and Africa, and the southern United States (Schneider, 1971; Nisbett and Cohen, 1996; Gregg, 2005). In the culture of honor, certain behaviors are regarded as transgressive (that is, challenges to honor), and individuals deter transgressions against themselves by maintaining a reputation for aggressive retaliation (defending their honor). As the anthropologist Joyce Pettigrew (1991, p. 174) writes, the culture of honor “enjoined that revenge be exacted for personal insults and damage to person or property.” As we confirm with a vignette-based survey, the concern for honor is much more characteristic of high castes than it is of low castes, perhaps because low castes have traditionally been denied the right to accumulate wealth and achieve status.

In many ways, the outcome ( _Stag_ , _Hare_ ) fits the bill for the kind of event that would elicit an aggressive, retaliatory response under the culture of honor. A subject that plays _Stag_ is “harmed” by a partner who plays _Hare_ , in the sense that the partner’s choice of _Hare_ imposes on him a loss. The only “honorable” response may be to punish the partner, 3