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Experimental evidence shows that ulterior motive attribution drives counter-punishment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Manuel Muñoz-Herrera Open the ORCID record for Manuel Muñoz-Herrera [Opens in a new window]  and
Nikos Nikiforakis Open the ORCID record for Nikos Nikiforakis [Opens in a new window]
Manuel Muñoz-Herrera*
Affiliation:
Center for Behavioral Institutional Design, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
Nikos Nikiforakis*
Affiliation:
Center for Behavioral Institutional Design, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE Division of Social Science, Center for Behavioral Institutional Design, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE
*
[email protected]
e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Evidence shows that the willingness of individuals to avenge punishment inflicted upon them for transgressions they committed constitutes a significant obstacle toward upholding social norms and cooperation. The drivers of this behavior, however, are not well understood. We hypothesize that ulterior motive attribution—the tendency to assign ulterior motives to punishers for their actions—increases the likelihood of counter-punishment. We exogenously manipulate the ability to attribute ulterior motives to punishers by having the punisher be either an unaffected third party or a second party who, as the victim of a transgression, may be driven to punish by a desire to take revenge. We show that survey respondents consider second-party punishment to be substantially more likely to be driven by ulterior motives than an identical, payoff-equalizing punishment meted out by a third party. In line with our hypothesis, we find that second-party punishment is 66.3% more likely to trigger counter-punishment than third-party punishment in a lab experiment. The loss in earnings due to counter-punishment is 64.6% higher for second-party punishers than third-party punishers, all else equal.

Keywords

Social normsCounter-punishmentAltruistic punishmentCooperation

JEL classification

H41: Public Goods D70: General C92: Laboratory, Group Behavior
Type
Original Paper
Information
Journal of the Economic Science Association , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , December 2023 , pp. 193 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Economic Science Association 2023.

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