ReviewEvolutionary human sciences2019
Punishment: one tool, many uses.
Review in Evolutionary human sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 43 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 130 citations in OpenAlex.
- Types of Punishment and Self-Reported Willingness to Change Behavior: Chain Mediation by Perceived Motivation for Punishment and Trust, and the Moderating Role of Group Relationship.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Coordination costs may counteract the positive effects of a larger group size in determining the winner of between-group conflicts.iScience · 2026Article
- Incomplete reputation information and punishment in indirect reciprocity.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Individual differences in motives for costly punishment.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- The impact of disciplinary intensity and number of infractions on bystander trust in teacher: the mediating role of trustworthiness.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Testing evolutionary theories of human cooperation via meta-analysis of microfinance repayment.Evolutionary human sciences · 2026Article
- Inequality aversion and prosocial punishment: Evidence from a one-shot public goods game.PloS one · 2026Article
- Profitable third-party punishment destabilizes cooperation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- What people learn from punishment: A cognitive model.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Rewards and punishments help humans overcome biases against cooperation partners assumed to be machines.iScience · 2025Article
- Protecting Public Goods or Helping Free Riders? A Real-Life Moral Dilemma in Interethnic and Intraethnic Encounters.Psychological science · 2025Article
- A norm about harvest division is maintained by a desire to follow tradition, not by social policing.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Teacher Punishment Intensity and Parental Trust: A Moderated Moderation Effect Based on CEPS 2013-2014 Survey Data.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- To Bees or Not to Bees: Greater Honeyguides Sometimes Guide Humans to Animals Other Than Bees, but Likely Not as Punishment.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Teacher punishment intensity and parental trust in rural China: a moderated mediation of violation severity and trustworthiness.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- The impact of teacher punishment intensity on parental trust in rural China: an experimental examination of a moderated mediation model.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- The influence of social value orientation and group relations on fairness norms enforcement.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Punishment is slower than cooperation or defection in online network games.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The impact of group membership on punishment versus partner rejection.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- An outside individual option increases optimism and facilitates collaboration when groups form flexibly.Nature communications · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Humans are outstanding in their ability to cooperate with unrelated individuals, and punishment - paying a cost to harm others - is thought to be a key supporting mechanism. According to this view, cooperators punish defectors, who respond by behaving more cooperatively in future interactions. However, a synthesis of the evidence from laboratory and real-world settings casts serious doubts on the assumption that the sole function of punishment is to convert cheating individuals into cooperators. Instead, punishment often prompts retaliation and punishment decisions frequently stem from competitive, rather than deterrent motives. 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. We therefore suggest that punishment also serves a competitive function, where what looks like spiteful behaviour actually allows punishers to equalise or elevate their own payoffs and/or status relative to targets independently of any change in the target's behaviour. 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.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.