Dear All,
The CEU Department of Cognitive Science cordially invites you to its next talk by:
Nichola Raihani
(UCL)<https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pals/research/experimental-psychology/person/nichola-raihani/>
Date: Wednesday, June 12, 2019 - 17:00-18:30
Host: Christophe Heintz
Location: Department of Cognitive Science, CEU, Oktober 6 street 7, room 101.
Punishment: one tool, many uses
Punishment involves paying a cost to harm others and is thought to operate as a tool to
convert cheaters into cooperators. In stylized laboratory games, humans willingly punish
their co-players, and this proclivity for punishment is frequently invoked to explain why
humans are so extraordinarily cooperative. In this talk, I will critically assess the
assumption that punishment is used as a tool to convert cheaters into cooperators. I will
first present evidence from the cleaner fish-client mutualism, showing data that support
this assumption. I will then discuss the picture in humans, which seems to be more
complicated. In humans, punishment often prompts retaliation, rather than cooperation.
Furthermore, punishment decisions often reflect the desire to equalise or elevate payoffs
relative to targets, rather than the desire to enact revenge for harm received or to deter
cheats from reoffending in future. For example, negative gossip - one obvious real-world
expression of punitive sentiment - is arguably more likely to serve a competitive, rather
than a deterrent function. Together, these converging strands of evidence cast serious
doubts on the assumption that the sole function of punishment in humans is to convert
cheating individuals into cooperators. I will outline a competing hypothesis: punishment
has a competitive function, that allows punishers to equalise or elevate their own payoffs
and/or status relative to targets independently of any change in the target's
behaviour. Indeed, the commonly-used 1:3 fee-to-fine ratio in experimental games is
competitive by default since it costs less to inflict punishment than to receive it.
Finally, I will discuss how institutions that reduce or remove the possibility that
punishers are motivated by relative payoff or status concerns might offer a way to harness
these competitive motives and render punishment more effective at restoring cooperation.
See more at:
https://cognitivescience.ceu.edu/events/2019-06-12/departmental-colloquium-…
We look forward to seeing you there!
Cognitive Science Events at CEU:
http://cognitivescience.ceu.edu/events
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