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Scientific Reports Jan 2023A fundamental question in social and biological sciences is whether self-governance is possible when individual and collective interests are in conflict. Free riding...
A fundamental question in social and biological sciences is whether self-governance is possible when individual and collective interests are in conflict. Free riding poses a major challenge to self-governance, and a prominent solution to this challenge has been altruistic punishment. However, this solution is ineffective when counter-punishments are possible and when social interactions are noisy. We set out to address these shortcomings, motivated by the fact that most people behave like conditional cooperators-individuals willing to cooperate if a critical number of others do so. In our evolutionary model, the population contains heterogeneous conditional cooperators whose decisions depend on past cooperation levels. The population plays a repeated public goods game in a moderately noisy environment where individuals can occasionally commit mistakes in their cooperative decisions and in their imitation of the role models' strategies. We show that, under moderate levels of noise, injecting a few altruists into the population triggers positive reciprocity among conditional cooperators, thereby providing a novel mechanism to establish stable cooperation. More broadly, our findings indicate that self-governance is possible while avoiding the detrimental effects of punishment, and suggest that society should focus on creating a critical amount of trust to harness the conditional nature of its members.
Topics: Humans; Cooperative Behavior; Punishment; Game Theory; Altruism; Social Interaction
PubMed: 36681708
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-28372-y -
Neuropsychopharmacology : Official... Jul 2018Punishment involves learning about the relationship between behavior and its adverse consequences. Punishment is fundamental to reinforcement learning, decision-making... (Review)
Review
Punishment involves learning about the relationship between behavior and its adverse consequences. Punishment is fundamental to reinforcement learning, decision-making and choice, and is disrupted in psychiatric disorders such as addiction, depression, and psychopathy. However, little is known about the brain mechanisms of punishment and much of what is known is derived from study of superficially similar, but fundamentally distinct, forms of aversive learning such as fear conditioning and avoidance learning. Here we outline the unique conditions that support punishment, the contents of its learning, and its behavioral consequences. We consider evidence implicating GABA and monoamine neurotransmitter systems, as well as corticostriatal, amygdala, and dopamine circuits in punishment. We show how maladaptive punishment processes are implicated in addictions, impulse control disorders, psychopathy, anxiety, and depression and argue that a better understanding of the cellular, circuit, and cognitive mechanisms of punishment will make important contributions to next generation therapeutic approaches.
Topics: Animals; Avoidance Learning; Brain; Humans; Mental Disorders; Punishment
PubMed: 29703994
DOI: 10.1038/s41386-018-0047-3 -
Current Opinion in Psychology Feb 2022Theory and experiments suggest people have different strategies (1) to condition their prosocial behavior in ways that maximize individual benefits and (2) to punish... (Review)
Review
Theory and experiments suggest people have different strategies (1) to condition their prosocial behavior in ways that maximize individual benefits and (2) to punish others who have exploited their own and others' prosocial behaviors. To date, most research testing existing theories has relied on experiments. However, documenting prosocial and punishment behaviors outside of the laboratory via experience sampling and diary methods can yield additional, rich insights. Recent work demonstrates these methods can describe social behaviors in daily life and be used to test theory about how behaviors change across situations and relationships. These methods have exposed discrepancies between what people experience in daily life and the problems researchers want to solve to understand the nature of human prosociality.
Topics: Altruism; Ecological Momentary Assessment; Humans; Problem Solving; Punishment; Social Behavior
PubMed: 34508966
DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.08.015 -
Lancet (London, England) Jul 2021Physical punishment is increasingly viewed as a form of violence that harms children. This narrative review summarises the findings of 69 prospective longitudinal... (Review)
Review
Physical punishment is increasingly viewed as a form of violence that harms children. This narrative review summarises the findings of 69 prospective longitudinal studies to inform practitioners and policy makers about physical punishment's outcomes. Our review identified seven key themes. First, physical punishment consistently predicts increases in child behaviour problems over time. Second, physical punishment is not associated with positive outcomes over time. Third, physical punishment increases the risk of involvement with child protective services. Fourth, the only evidence of children eliciting physical punishment is for externalising behaviour. Fifth, physical punishment predicts worsening behaviour over time in quasi-experimental studies. Sixth, associations between physical punishment and detrimental child outcomes are robust across child and parent characteristics. Finally, there is some evidence of a dose-response relationship. The consistency of these findings indicates that physical punishment is harmful to children and that policy remedies are warranted.
Topics: Child; Child Behavior; Child Protective Services; Child Rearing; Domestic Violence; Humans; Parent-Child Relations; Punishment
PubMed: 34197808
DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00582-1 -
Neuropsychopharmacology : Official... Jul 2018
Topics: Humans; Mental Disorders; Punishment
PubMed: 29728646
DOI: 10.1038/s41386-018-0062-4 -
Biological Psychiatry Dec 2021Activation of the mesolimbic dopamine system is positively reinforcing. After repeated activation, some individuals develop compulsive reward-seeking behavior, which is...
BACKGROUND
Activation of the mesolimbic dopamine system is positively reinforcing. After repeated activation, some individuals develop compulsive reward-seeking behavior, which is a core symptom of addiction. However, the underlying neural mechanism remains elusive.
METHODS
We trained mice in a seek-take chain, rewarded by optogenetic dopamine neuron self-stimulation. After compulsivity was evaluated, AMPA/NMDA ratio was measured at three distinct corticostriatal pathways confirmed by retrograde labeling and anterograde synaptic connectivity. Fiber photometry method and chemogenetics were used to parse the contribution of orbitofrontal cortex afferents onto the dorsal striatum (DS) during the behavioral task. We established a causal link between DS activity and compulsivity using optogenetic inhibition.
RESULTS
Mice that persevered when seeking was punished exhibited an increased AMPA/NMDA ratio selectively at orbitofrontal cortex to DS synapses. In addition, an activity peak of spiny projection neurons in the DS at the moment of signaled reward availability was detected. Chemogenetic inhibition of orbitofrontal cortex neurons curbed the activity peak and reduced punished reward seeking, as did optogenetic hyperpolarization of spiny projection neurons time-locked to the cue predicting reward availability.
CONCLUSIONS
Our results suggest that compulsive individuals display stronger neuronal activity in the DS during the cue predicting reward availability even when at the risk of punishment, nurturing further compulsive reward seeking.
Topics: Animals; Compulsive Behavior; Dopaminergic Neurons; Mice; Prefrontal Cortex; Punishment; Reward
PubMed: 34688471
DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.08.018 -
Proceedings. Biological Sciences Nov 2021Economic experiments have suggested that cooperative humans will altruistically match local levels of cooperation (conditional cooperation) and pay to punish...
Economic experiments have suggested that cooperative humans will altruistically match local levels of cooperation (conditional cooperation) and pay to punish non-cooperators (altruistic punishment). Evolutionary models have suggested that if altruists punish non-altruists this could favour the evolution of costly helping behaviours (cooperation) among strangers. An often-key requirement is that helping behaviours and punishing behaviours form one single conjoined trait (strong reciprocity). Previous economics experiments have provided support for the hypothesis that punishment and cooperation form one conjoined, altruistically motivated, trait. However, such a conjoined trait may be evolutionarily unstable, and previous experiments have confounded a fear of being punished with being surrounded by cooperators, two factors that could favour cooperation. Here, we experimentally decouple the fear of punishment from a cooperative environment and allow cooperation and punishment behaviour to freely separate (420 participants). We show, that if a minority of individuals is made immune to punishment, they (i) learn to stop cooperating on average despite being surrounded by high levels of cooperation, contradicting the idea of conditional cooperation and (ii) often continue to punish, 'hypocritically', showing that cooperation and punishment do not form one, altruistically motivated, linked trait.
Topics: Altruism; Biological Evolution; Cooperative Behavior; Game Theory; Humans; Punishment
PubMed: 34753350
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2021.1611 -
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal... Feb 2016Cheaters-genotypes that gain a selective advantage by taking the benefits of the social contributions of others while avoiding the costs of cooperating-are thought to... (Review)
Review
Cheaters-genotypes that gain a selective advantage by taking the benefits of the social contributions of others while avoiding the costs of cooperating-are thought to pose a major threat to the evolutionary stability of cooperative societies. In order for cheaters to undermine cooperation, cheating must be an adaptive strategy: cheaters must have higher fitness than cooperators, and their behaviour must reduce the fitness of their cooperative partners. It is frequently suggested that cheating is not adaptive because cooperators have evolved mechanisms to punish these behaviours, thereby reducing the fitness of selfish individuals. However, a simpler hypothesis is that such societies arise precisely because cooperative strategies have been favoured over selfish ones-hence, behaviours that have been interpreted as 'cheating' may not actually result in increased fitness, even when they go unpunished. Here, we review the empirical evidence for cheating behaviours in animal societies, including cooperatively breeding vertebrates and social insects, and we ask whether such behaviours are primarily limited by punishment. Our review suggests that both cheating and punishment are probably rarer than often supposed. Uncooperative individuals typically have lower, not higher, fitness than cooperators; and when evidence suggests that cheating may be adaptive, it is often limited by frequency-dependent selection rather than by punishment. When apparently punitive behaviours do occur, it remains an open question whether they evolved in order to limit cheating, or whether they arose before the evolution of cooperation.
Topics: Animals; Behavior, Animal; Biological Evolution; Cooperative Behavior; Female; Game Theory; Insecta; Male; Models, Biological; Punishment; Reproduction; Social Behavior
PubMed: 26729930
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0090 -
Neuropsychopharmacology : Official... Jan 2022
Topics: Punishment
PubMed: 34645981
DOI: 10.1038/s41386-021-01182-4 -
Trends in Ecology & Evolution May 2012Humans use punishment to promote cooperation in laboratory experiments but evidence that punishment plays a similar role in non-human animals is comparatively rare. In... (Review)
Review
Humans use punishment to promote cooperation in laboratory experiments but evidence that punishment plays a similar role in non-human animals is comparatively rare. In this article, we examine why this may be the case by reviewing evidence from both laboratory experiments on humans and ecologically relevant studies on non-human animals. Generally, punishment appears to be most probable if players differ in strength or strategic options. Although these conditions are common in nature, punishment (unlike other forms of aggression) involves immediate payoff reductions to both punisher and target, with net benefits to punishers contingent on cheats behaving more cooperatively in future interactions. In many cases, aggression yielding immediate benefits may suffice to deter cheats and might explain the relative scarcity of punishment in nature.
Topics: Aggression; Animals; Biological Evolution; Cooperative Behavior; Humans; Punishment; Selection, Genetic
PubMed: 22284810
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2011.12.004