News Section | Mental Health
People don’t like to be discovered punishing others for egoistic behaviour
People select future social partners on the basis of their cooperative behaviour and not according to whether they punish the egoism of others, according to a new study.
This finding is surprising as it showed that people identify particularly altruistic partners in this way and could benefit from their behaviour.
Consequently, people conceal uncooperative behaviour.
Altruism can enhance an individual’s reputation and prevail if others know the corresponding behaviour.
Thus, people behave more cooperatively when they are observed. Accordingly, as soon as they are aware that they are being observed, egoists try to conceal their behaviour and pretend to act cooperatively.
The observer, in turn, would like to prevent this and tries to conceal his or her attention.
The researchers from Cologne and Plon discovered this interaction with the help of public goods games, in which the participants could benefit from egoistic behaviour.
Their experiments showed that external observers prefer people who show solidarity as future game partners.
“A kind of ‘arms race’ thus arises between the two parties. They both want to keep their intentions secret from the other,” said Manfred Milinski from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology.
Interestingly, observers seldom select people who punish others for egoistic behaviour.
In effect, such sanctions are an expression of altruistic behaviour, as they are associated with personal costs incurred for the general good.
“A person who observes other people with a view to finding cooperative partners would be expected to take punishment behaviour into account. The finding that people do not use this information raises important new research questions,” said Bettina Rockenbach from the University of Cologne.
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