The DOI matches its Crossref record; 37 of the 37 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Social learning promotes institutions for governing the commons
Open accessAbstract
Theoretical and empirical research highlights the role of punishment in promoting collaborative efforts. However, both the emergence and the stability of costly punishment are problematic issues. It is not clear how punishers can invade a society of defectors by social learning or natural selection, or how second-order free-riders (who contribute to the joint effort but not to the sanctions) can be prevented from drifting into a coercion-based regime and subverting cooperation. Here we compare the prevailing model of peer-punishment with pool-punishment, which consists in committing resources, before the collaborative effort, to prepare sanctions against free-riders. Pool-punishment facilitates the sanctioning of second-order free-riders, because these are exposed even if everyone contributes to the common good. In the absence of such second-order punishment, peer-punishers do better than pool-punishers; but with second-order punishment, the situation is reversed. Efficiency is traded for stability. Neither other-regarding tendencies or preferences for reciprocity and equity, nor group selection or prescriptions from higher authorities, are necessary for the emergence and stability of rudimentary forms of sanctioning institutions regulating common pool resources and enforcing collaborative efforts.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Second, agents' behaviors may be affected by noise (such as imitation error and behavioral mutation) in the process of social learning [37, 38, 47], which is usually ignored by previous theoretical models.”
From Conditional investment strategy in evolutionary trust games with repeated group interactions (2022) · cites this paper as [37]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
Ostrom, E. (1990) · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511807763 · Cited by 20,653
Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
Field, B. C., & Elinor Ostrom, B. (1992) · Land Economics · doi:10.2307/3146384 · Cited by 19,100
Altruistic punishment in humans
Fehr, E., & Gächter, S. (2002) · Nature · doi:10.1038/415137a · Cited by 5,616
Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments
Fehr, E., & Gächter, S. (2000) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.90.4.980 · Cited by 4,547 · cited 3×
“Adding second-order punishment may add to the cost of sanctioning, but as long as inequality (1) holds, the results are unaffected.”
BackgroundThe Major Transitions in Evolution
Smith, J. M., & Szathmáry, E. (1997) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780198502944.001.0001 · Cited by 2,570
Antisocial Punishment Across Societies
Herrmann, B., Thöni, C., & Gächter, S. (2008) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1153808 · Cited by 2,038
Costly Punishment Across Human Societies
Henrich, J., McElreath, R., Barr, A., Ensminger, J., Barrett, C., Bolyanatz, A., Cardenas, J. C., Gurven, M., Gwako, E., Henrich, N., et al. (2006) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1127333 · Cited by 1,771
The evolution of altruistic punishment
Boyd, R., Gintis, H., Bowles, S., & Richerson, P. J. (2003) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0630443100 · Cited by 1,748
Dietz, N. D. T., Ostrom, E., & Stern, P. (2002) · National Academies Press eBooks · doi:10.17226/10287 · Cited by 1,520
Evolutionary prisoner's dilemma game on a square lattice
Szabó, G., & Tőke, C. (1997) · Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics · doi:10.1103/physreve.58.69 · Cited by 1,507
Punishment allows the evolution of cooperation (or anything else) in sizable groups
Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (1992) · Ethology and Sociobiology · doi:10.1016/0162-3095(92)90032-y · Cited by 1,482
The Statistical Mechanics of Strategic Interaction
Blume, L. E. (1993) · Games and Economic Behavior · doi:10.1006/game.1993.1023 · Cited by 1,391
The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good.
Yamagishi, T. (1986) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.51.1.110 · Cited by 1,359
Volunteering as Red Queen Mechanism for Cooperation in Public Goods Games
Hauert, C., Monte, S. D., Hofbauer, J., & Sigmund, K. (2002) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1070582 · Cited by 1,109
Self-citationThe Competitive Advantage of Sanctioning Institutions
Gürerk, O., Irlenbusch, B., & Rockenbach, B. (2006) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1123633 · Cited by 997
Detrimental effects of sanctions on human altruism
Fehr, E., & Rockenbach, B. (2003) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature01474 · Cited by 800
Via Freedom to Coercion: The Emergence of Costly Punishment
Hauert, C., Traulsen, A., Brandt, H., Nowak, M. A., & Sigmund, K. (2007) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1141588 · Cited by 721
Self-citationCoordinated Punishment of Defectors Sustains Cooperation and Can Proliferate When Rare
Boyd, R., Gintis, H., & Bowles, S. (2010) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1183665 · Cited by 613
The Long-Run Benefits of Punishment
Gächter, S., Renner, E., & Sefton, M. (2008) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1164744 · Cited by 611
The efficient interaction of indirect reciprocity and costly punishment
Rockenbach, B., & Milinski, M. (2006) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature05229 · Cited by 501
Altruistic punishment and the origin of cooperation
Fowler, J. H. (2005) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0500938102 · Cited by 473
The economics of altruistic punishment and the maintenance of cooperation
Egas, M., & Riedl, A. M. (2008) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.2007.1558 · Cited by 468
The Major Transitions in Evolution
Smith, J. M., & Szathmáry, E. (1996) · Journal of the History of Biology · Cited by 424
Institution Formation in Public Goods Games
Kosfeld, M., Okada, A., & Riedl, A. M. (2009) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.99.4.1335 · Cited by 376
Mutual policing and repression of competition in the evolution of cooperative groups
Frank, S. A. (1995) · Nature · doi:10.1038/377520a0 · Cited by 373
Volunteering leads to rock–paper–scissors dynamics in a public goods game
Semmann, D., Krambeck, H.-J., & Milinski, M. (2003) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature01986 · Cited by 360
Imitation processes with small mutations
Fudenberg, D., & Imhof, L. A. (2006) · Journal of Economic Theory · doi:10.1016/j.jet.2005.04.006 · Cited by 335
Fixation of Strategies for an Evolutionary Game in Finite Populations
Antal, T., & Scheuring, I. (2006) · Bulletin of Mathematical Biology · doi:10.1007/s11538-006-9061-4 · Cited by 281
Social Welfare, Cooperators' Advantage, and the Option of Not Playing the Game
Orbell, J. M., & Dawes, R. M. (1993) · American Sociological Review · doi:10.2307/2095951 · Cited by 279
Who to punish? Individual decisions and majority rule in mitigating the free rider problem
Ertan, A. S., Page, T., & Putterman, L. G. (2008) · European Economic Review · doi:10.1016/j.euroecorev.2008.09.007 · Cited by 232
Cooperation and Punishment, Especially in Humans
Gardner, A., & West, S. A. (2004) · The American Naturalist · doi:10.1086/425623 · Cited by 221
The coevolution of altruism and punishment: Role of the selfish punisher
Nakamaru, M., & Iwasa, Y. (2005) · Journal of Theoretical Biology · doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2005.10.011 · Cited by 126
Games, Groups, and the Global Good
Levin, S. A. (2009) · Springer series in game theory · doi:10.1007/978-3-540-85436-4 · Cited by 106
Lehmann, L., Rousset, F., Roze, D., & Keller, L. (2007) · The American Naturalist · doi:10.1086/518568 · Cited by 98
When does optional participation allow the evolution of cooperation?
Mathew, S., & Boyd, R. T. (2008) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.2008.1623 · Cited by 61
Freedom, enforcement, and the social dilemma of strong altruism
Silva, H. D., Hauert, C., Traulsen, A., & Sigmund, K. (2009) · Journal of Evolutionary Economics · doi:10.1007/s00191-009-0162-8 · Cited by 44
Self-citationSocial construction of groups: Preliminary study of imposed social identity
Shinada, M., Ohmura, Y., & Yamagishi, T. (2004) · Cited by 3
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Kiyonari, T., Barclay, P., Wilson, M. & Daly, D. Second order punishment in one-shot prisoner’s dilemma. Int. J. Psychol. 39, 329–334 (2004)
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Statistical physics of human cooperation
Perc, M., Jordan, J., Rand, D. G., Wang, Z., Boccaletti, S., & Szolnoki, A. (2017) · Physics Reports · doi:10.1016/j.physrep.2017.05.004 · Cited by 1,599
Leadership, social capital and incentives promote successful fisheries
Gutiérrez, N. L., Hilborn, R. W., & Defeo, O. (2011) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature09689 · Cited by 1,441
Culture-gene coevolution, norm-psychology and the emergence of human prosociality
Chudek, M., & Henrich, J. (2011) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2011.03.003 · Cited by 739
Reward and cooperation in the spatial public goods game
Szolnoki, A., & Perc, M. (2010) · Europhysics Letters (EPL) · doi:10.1209/0295-5075/92/38003 · Cited by 714
Rand, D. G. (2011) · Journal of Theoretical Biology · doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2011.03.004 · Cited by 699
Metadata
- Authors
- Sigmund, K., De Silva, H., Traulsen, A., & Hauert, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Vienna (AT)
- Max Planck Society (DE)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Sigmund, Karl
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2010-07-14
- Volume
- 466
- Issue
- 7308
- Pages
- 861-863
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2012615693
- Cited by
- 580
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 28 · 2025: 35 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 40 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 32 · 2020: 33 · 2019: 35 · 2018: 26 · 2017: 41 · 2016: 38 · 2015: 31 · 2014: 37 · 2013: 44 · 2012: 39
- FWCI
- 129.61
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- pure.iiasa.ac.at
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- IIASA PURE (International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- WU Research (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economic Theory and Institutions
- Keywords
- social learning, peer punishment, cooperation, costly punishment, commons governance, sanctioning institutions, evolutionary game theory, common-pool resources, social contract, emergence of institutions, efficiency-stability trade-off, free-riding, reciprocity, equity preferences, group selection, self-government, public goods, evolution of cooperation
- MeSH terms
- Competitive Behavior, Cooperative Behavior, Biological Evolution, Game Theory, Learning, Population Density, Punishment, Selection, Genetic, Social Behavior, Time Factors
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
