
We examine the characteristics and relative strength of third-party sanctions in a series of experiments. We hypothesize that egalitarian distribution norms and cooperation norms apply in our experiments, and that third parties, whose economic payoff is unaffected by the norm violation, may be willing to enforce these norms although the enforcement is costly for them. Almost two-thirds of the third parties indeed punished the violation of the distribution norm and their punishment increased the more the norm was violated. Likewise, up to roughly 60% of the third parties punished violations of the cooperation norm. Thus, our results show that the notion of strong reciprocity extends to the sanctioning behavior of ‘‘unaffected’’ third parties. In addition, these experiments suggest that thirdparty punishment games are powerful tools for studying the characteristics and the content of social norms. Further experiments indicate that second parties, whose economic payoff is reduced by the norm violation, punish the violation much more strongly than do third parties.
Social norm, sanction, punishment, strong reciprocity, social preference, third-party., Social norm, 3205 Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Sanction, 330 Economics, 1105 Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Punishment, Third party, 10007 Department of Economics, IEW Institute for Empirical Research in Economics (former), 1201 Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous), Social preference, Strong reciprocity, Social norm; Sanction; Punishment; Strong reciprocity; Social preference; Third party, jel: jel:Z13, jel: jel:C91, jel: jel:D63
Social norm, sanction, punishment, strong reciprocity, social preference, third-party., Social norm, 3205 Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Sanction, 330 Economics, 1105 Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Punishment, Third party, 10007 Department of Economics, IEW Institute for Empirical Research in Economics (former), 1201 Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous), Social preference, Strong reciprocity, Social norm; Sanction; Punishment; Strong reciprocity; Social preference; Third party, jel: jel:Z13, jel: jel:C91, jel: jel:D63
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