Kinship and friendship in a trust game with third party punishment
This paper reports on a set of trust games with third party punishment (TPP) where participants are either family members or friends or unrelated villagers. The experimental sessions were carried out in southern Namibia (Karas) and the bordering northern South Africa (Namaqualand). The aim was to...
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| Published in: | MAGKS - Joint Discussion Paper Series in Economics (Band 09-2008) |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Work |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2008
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | PDF Full Text |
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| Summary: | This paper reports on a set of trust games with third party punishment (TPP) where
participants are either family members or friends or unrelated villagers. The experimental
sessions were carried out in southern Namibia (Karas) and the bordering northern South
Africa (Namaqualand). The aim was to test several hypotheses derived from kin selection
theory as well as to assess the importance of third party punishment for encounters among
family members and friends. Building on Hamilton, (1964) it was proposed by e.g. Madsen et
al., (2007) that kinship is the baseline behaviour among humans. Thus, I use kinship as basis
for comparison of how we treat friends and unrelated people and when there is the possibility
to punish free-riding behaviour. It turns out that kinship is the baseline behaviour when no
other features are available to humans. However, a personal exchange among friends that has
a third party observer performs better than a personal exchange among family members
without third party punishment. Contributions to family members can substantially be
increased by third party punishment. Thus, human ability to sustain a norm by punishing freeriders
at personal costs could also have played an important role in sustaining co-operation
among kin. |
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| ISSN: | 1867-3678 |
| DOI: | 10.17192/es2023.0196 |