Punishing slackers and do-gooders – Not Exactly Rocket Science

Punishing slackers and do-gooders – Not Exactly Rocket Science

This practice of ‘antisocial punishment’ was largely absent in many groups but it was a frequent tactic among players from countries like Saudi Arabia, Greece and Oman, who were just as likely to castigate altruists as scroungers. Even in these groups, levels of cooperation didn’t decline but they never climbed to the levels of groups that only punished freeloaders. By the end of the tenth round, players from Athens and Riyadh were only contributing about 33% of their earnings.

REVISITING THE ANTISOCIAL PUNISHMENT ACROSS SOCIETIES EXPERIMENT

"Public Goods Games" : Wikipedia

The report on the experiment is here