The influence of partner presence on cooperation and norm formation

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-2755542/v1

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The influence of partner presence on cooperation and norm formation

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2755542/v1

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Previous studies have shown that the presence of others makes people more norm-compliant and behave more cooperatively in economic games. As important others who have interdependent relationship with the individual, the influence of the presence of partners on individual’s behavior has been overlooked. In this study, we used the repeated public goods game to examine how the presence of partners affects individual’s cooperative behavior and group’s norm formation in both no-punishment and punishment situations among 42 groups of four anonymous players (N = 168). The results of Generalized Estimating Equations showed that in the absence of punishment, the presence of partners significantly improved participants’ average level of cooperation but did not promote the formation of group norms, whereas when punishment was available, partner presence changed the way punishment being administered and in turn strengthened group norms and encouraged more consistent cooperative behavior. The effects of mere partner presence and its interaction with punishment on cooperation and norm formation were discussed.

Public cooperation

Partner presence

Norms formation

Peer punishment

According to the Field theory (Burnes & Cooke, 2013; Lewin, 1951; Martin, 2003), a person's (or a group's) behavior is influenced by how they interact with their surroundings. As a result, in order to understand and predict a person's behavior and behavior changes, it is necessary to take into account the overall psychological environment he or she perceives, i.e., to construct the individual's life space. The life space is a “field”, which contains all the driving factors that change the behavior of individuals and groups at a particular moment. Many studies have changed individuals’ behavior by changing their “field”. For example, people contributed more money or were more likely to take the initiative to pick up garbage when in an environment with watching eyes (Rigdon, Ishii, Watabe, & Kitayama, 2009). Public donations made in front of lawyers were 25% higher than private anonymous donations (Alpizar, Carlsson, & Johansson-Stenman, 2008).

Changes in the "field" also affect people's allocations of money in economic games, which are often used to assess a person's propensity for fairness and altruism or cooperation level. For instance, those who made decisions in front of a computer screen with a picture of eyes allocated more money to recipients in the dictator game (Haley & Fessler, 2005). Displaying members’ photos in the public goods game made people contribute more (Andreoni & Petrie, 2004). When observed and evaluated by a third party, people made more contributions (Wedekind & Milinski, 2000). By comparing earlier studies on the dictator game, Hoffman, McCabe and Smith (1999) found that when participants were anonymous to each other and their allocation decisions were not known to the investigator, individuals in the same room without partition (Bohnet & Frey, 1999) made fair allocation much more frequently than those in different compartments (Hoffman, McCabe, & Smith, 1996). Hoffman et al. (1999) noted that this suggests the presence of partners may have an impact on individuals’ allocation decisions. He argued that when partners were present, individuals perceived a stronger likelihood of reciprocity and to comply with the reciprocity norm, individuals allocated more fair amounts to the other party.

Partner presence differs from eye cues, partners’ photos, and the presence of a third party. First, real people are more likely to elicit reputational considerations than eye cues (Sparks & Barclay, 2013). Second, the instant facial expression changes of real people may also have an impact on cooperation (Andreoni & Petrie, 2004). Third, according to the interdependence theory (Van Lange & Balliet, 2015), interdependent and interacting persons in social dilemmas are more closely related, that is, one’s decisions affect the outcomes of others. Thus, compared with unrelated others, partners are more likely to influence one another and act in conformity with group norms.

However, since previous studies typically adopted the design in which participants conduct experiments in different rooms (Fehr & Gächter, 2000; Henrich & Boyd, 2001; Henrich & Muthukrishna, 2021; Ostrom, Walker, & Gardner, 1992) or in different booths with dividers of the same room (Tyler, 2010; Wedekind & Milinski, 2000; Zelmer, 2003), the impact of partner presence on cooperative behavior has not been specifically examined. In addition, data from economic experiments has demonstrated that the promotion of eye cues on cooperative behavior is affected by time of duration. Participants exposed to eye cues for a short time donated more money than those exposed for a long time, indicating that the effect of eye cues is a subconscious response (Sparks & Barclay, 2013). This suggests that the length of interaction should also be considered when examining the impact of the presence of real partners, yet previous studies primarily employed one-shot economic games and did not take into account the situation of repeated rounds of games (Andreoni & Petrie, 2004; Haley & Fessler, 2005; Hoffman, McCabe, & Smith, 1999; Wedekind & Milinski, 2000).

It has been found that group members frequently use each other’s behavior as a guide while acting within the group. Each group develops a set of norms for behavior or attitude after engaging in continuous interaction for a while, and group members typically tend to comply with these norms (Kallgren, Reno, & Cialdini, 2000). When a member violates the norms, the other participants may discipline him or her to encourage compliance (Abbink, Gangadharan, Handfield, & Thrasher, 2017; K. Bettenhausen & Murnighan, 1985; K. L. Bettenhausen & Murnighan, 1991; Fehr & Schurtenberger, 2018; Pillutla & Chen, 1999). Accordingly, some researchers noted that two requirements are necessary for the formation of group norms: (1) a sufficient number of members conform to the rule; and (2) a sufficient number of members believe they should conform to the rule and are willing to punish the violators (Szekely et al., 2021). A research also found that when punishment is included, people's contributions in the public goods game first exhibit an upward trend before gradually leveling off, which may be related to the gradual formation of group norms under the effect of punishment (Fehr & Gächter, 2000).

Although there are altruistic (Fehr & Gächter, 2000, 2002) and antisocial (Herrmann, Thoni, & Gachter, 2008) reasons for punishment, the norm-forming viewpoint suggests that people may punish in order to maintain norms (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2004). According to Parks and Stone’s (Parks & Stone, 2010) research, those who contributed generously to the public goods while taking little in return may also be the targets of group exclusion. This exclusion stemmed from the expectation in social comparison that others should behave similarly to themselves and adhere to predetermined norms. Irwin and Horne (Irwin & Horne, 2013) examined how norms affect antisocial punishment and found that, despite the fact that the group benefits more from individuals’ contributions, those who made excessive contributions were regarded as unruly and punished more under strong norms.

Previous research has revealed that the presence of others influences punishment, but the impact is inconsistent. Some studies have found that the presence of others leads to less punishment toward violators. For instance, the presence of others facilitated the diffusion of responsibility and inhibited the tendency to criticize those who graffiti and litter (Chekroun & Brauer, 2002). People were more inclined to spend money to conceal their punishment conduct when they realized their actions were being watched because they were concerned that harsh punishment would damage their reputation (Rockenbach & Milinski, 2006). People were less willing to penalize when observed by a “Big Man” in the tribe because the bigwig’s observation was already posing a threat to potential violators. However, it has also been found that the presence of others increases the severity of punishment meted out to the violators. For example, when others’ violation involved the person's own interests and resulted in feeling changes and property losses, the presence of others increased the punishment (Van Bommel, Van Prooijen, Elffers, & Van Lange, 2012). Even though less likely to encounter one another again in the one-shot public goods game, researchers found that the participants’ spending on third-party punishment increased threefold when group members were present. Additionally, they felt more anger and less selfish. This suggests that being observed may boost the emotional system while weakening the rational system that calculates personal economic interests (Kurzban, DeScioli, & O'Brien, 2007).

This study uses a repeated public goods game to explore how the presence of partners affects people's cooperative behavior. We expect that the presence of partners will enhance people's awareness of following reciprocal norms and improve their level of cooperation. However, this effect might only be temporary and insufficient to guarantee the formation of norms. Given the intimate connection between punishment and norms formation, this study also focuses on the effect of partner presence on punitive behavior and group norms of cooperation. We expect that the presence of partners will enhance the impact that punishment plays in establishing norms. When cooperative partners are present, people will adjust the severity of punishment to bring those who contribute less or more than the group’s average level into line with others.

Methods

Participants

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Department of Psychology in a university in China. 80 college students (including 39 females) participated in Experiment 1. Participants ranged in age from 19 to 26 (M = 22.06, SD = 1.93) years. They were randomly assigned to the baseline condition (with no partners present, denoted by the abbreviation NP, n = 40) or the partners-present condition (denoted by the abbreviation P, n = 40). Participants signed an informed consent form before the experiment. After the experiment, they could convert the virtual tokens accumulated in the experiment into RMB (each token was worth 0.015 yuan), together with a fixed appearance fee of 10 yuan, for an average reward of 15.89 yuan.

Procedure

Experiment 1 used a public goods game that was repeated 30 rounds with each set of four players. The group members were strangers. Each player received 20 initial tokens per round. In the contribution stage, participants voluntarily decided the number of tokens (an integer ranging from 0 to 20) to be invested in the public account. The total amount of tokens in the public account was multiplied by 1.6 times and distributed evenly to each member. The payoff of participants in each round included the remaining tokens in their personal account and the tokens distributed from the public account. In the feedback stage, the participants received information about their own contribution, the total contributions of all members and their own payoff in the current round.

In the baseline condition, the four members of each group played the game in four different rooms. Each participant was given a random number to symbolize their identity after being allocated to a room at random. This number remained unchanged during the experiment. In the partners-present condition, the four players in each group completed the game in the same room. A number that represented their identity was randomly allocated to them and stayed the same throughout the experiment.

Data analyses

In order to investigate the effect of partner presence on cooperation, we used the Mann-Whitney rank sum test to analyze participants’ average contribution in the 30 rounds of the game under the two conditions. Additionally, to explore the impact of partner presence on the consistency of cooperation, we analyzed the distribution proportion of contribution deviations in five intervals (i.e., [-20, -8), [-8, -2), [-2, 2), [2, 8), and [8, 20]) in the two conditions by using the contingency table chi-square test. The contribution deviation in each round was the difference between the player’s contribution and the average contribution of the other three members. One’s cooperation is more consistent with the others’ the smaller the absolute value of the contribution deviation.

In order to examine the effects of partner presence on the trend of cooperation and the formation of group norms, we applied Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) using independent structure and maximum likelihood estimation. Subject number was considered as subject variable and the 30 rounds were considered as within-subject variable. The linear model was selected to verify how contribution in each round could be affected by: the main effects of (a) Condition (NP = 0, P = 1), (b) Stage (the first 15 rounds = 0, the last 15 rounds = 1), and (c) Round (1–30), and the interaction effects of (d) Condition and Stage, (e) Condition and Round, (f) Stage and Round, and (g) Condition, Stage and Round. Once the triple interaction was significant, we further tested whether the contribution trend between the two conditions in each stage, as well as between the two stages in each condition, had undergone any significant changes.

Results

Level and consistency of cooperation

The results of the Mann-Whitney U test showed that the average contribution in the P condition (M ± SD = 9.94 ± 5.37, the same below) was significantly higher than that in the NP condition (7.62 ± 5.63), Z = -10.238, p < 0.001, n = 2400 (see Fig. 1a), indicating that the presence of partners promoted cooperation.

The Chi-square test results revealed that there was no significant difference in the contribution deviations distribution between the two conditions, χ² = 5.282, df = 4, p = 0.260, indicating that the presence of partners did not affect the consistency of cooperation even though it could enhance the level of cooperation (see Fig. 1b).

Trend of cooperation and formation of group norms

The results of GEE (see Table 1) showed a significant interaction of Condition, Stage and Round (Wald χ2 = 6.766, df = 1, p = 0.009). We further contrasted the variation of contribution with rounds between the two conditions in each stage. The results showed that the interaction between Condition and Round was significant in the early stage (Wald χ2 = 3.264, df = 1, p = 0.071). While the contribution in the NP condition showed a significant decreasing trend (β = -0.294, SE = 0.063, p < 0.001), the contribution in the P condition decreased relatively more slowly (β = 0.166, SE = 0.092, p = 0.071) with a higher initial contribution level (β = 2.14, SE = 0.955, p = 0.025, see Fig. 2). However, the interaction between Condition and Round was not significant in the late stage (Wald χ2 = 2.241, df = 1, p = 0.134), indicating that the decline of the contribution in the two conditions was similar in the last 15 rounds of the game.

Table 1

Generalized estimating equations for the regression of condition, stage, and round on contribution.
Factor	Coef.	Standard Error	Estimated [95% CI]	Wald χ²	Sig.
intercept	10.428	0.715	[9.026, 11.830]	361.505	0
Condition	2.327	0.86	[0.641, 4.012]	5.554	0.018
Stage	0.62	0.554	[-0.467, 1.706]	0.21	0.647
Round	-0.179	0.031	[-0.239, -0.118]	33.395	0
Condition * Stage	-2.789	1.064	[-4.874, -0.704]	0.605	0.437
Condition * Round	0.033	0.062	[-0.039, 0.169]	0.294	0.588
Stage * Round	0.065	0.053	[-0.039, 0.169]	1.63	0.202
Condition * Stage * Round	-0.265	0.102	[-0.465, -0.065]	6.766	0.009

We also compared the variation of contribution with rounds between the two stages in each condition. The results showed that the interaction between Stage and Round was significant in the NP condition (Wald χ² = 10.224, df = 1, p = 0.001), with a decreasing trend in the early stage (β = -0.294, SE = 0.063, p < 0.001) and a relatively slower decreasing trend in the late stage (β = 0.198, SE = 0.062, p = 0.001 ). However, the interaction between Stage and Round was not significant in the P condition (Wald χ² = 0.693, df = 1, p = 0.405), indicating that the decline of contribution was similar in both stages. In short, although the presence of partners improved the initial contribution and eased the rapid decline of contribution in the early stage of interaction, it did not lead to stable group norms.

Brief summary

The results of Experiment 1 revealed that when the partners were present, people made more contributions in the repeated public goods game, which reflected a higher level of cooperation. However, the promotion effect of partner presence on contribution diminishes over rounds. Additionally, the presence of partners was insufficient to promote the formation of group norms and improve the consistency of cooperation. In other words, the mere presence of partners can only make people's cooperation more conform to the intuitive norms established in daily life, and this effect diminished with the repetition of interaction.

Several studies have demonstrated that punishment plays an important role in the formation of cooperative norms (Abbink et al., 2017; K. Bettenhausen & Murnighan, 1985; K. L. Bettenhausen & Murnighan, 1991; Fehr & Schurtenberger, 2018; Pillutla & Chen, 1999). Therefore, peer punishment was introduced into Experiment 2 to investigate the effect of partner presence on punishment, cooperation, and the formation of group norms.

Methods

Participants

88 college students (including 51 females) participated in Experiment 2. The participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 26 years old (M = 22.16, SD = 1.99). They were randomly assigned to the punishment condition (with no partners present, denoted by the abbreviation NPP, n = 44) or the partners-present punishment condition (denoted by the abbreviation PP, n = 44). Participants signed an informed consent form before the experiment. The fixed appearance fee and the exchange rate between token and RMB were identical to Experiment 1. The average reward was 15.23 yuan.

Procedure

In addition to the same contribution stage and feedback stage as Experiment 1, the public goods game in Experiment 2 also included a punishment stage and a final feedback stage. In the punishment stage, participants voluntarily decided whether to sacrifice a number of tokens to punish other members based on the information about each one’s contribution. The punishment score that a participant could impose on any other member ranged from 0 to 5, and the punishment ratio was 1:3 (Burton-Chellew & Guérin, 2021; Fehr & Gächter, 2002; Pleasant & Barclay, 2018). That is, for each token sacrificed by a participant to punish a member, that member would lose three tokens. In the final feedback stage, the participants received information about the number of tokens they sacrificed to punish other members, the number of punishing tokens they received from other members, and their final payoff in the current round. Under the NPP condition, members of each group completed the game in four different rooms, whereas under the PP condition, they did it in the same room.

Data analyses

Experiment 2 used the same methods as Experiment 1 to analyze the impact of partner presence on cooperation and norm formation when punishment was available. In addition, in order to further explore whether the presence of partners could encourage people make more normative contributions by altering different types of punishment, we divided the punishment into altruistic punishment (i.e., punishing those who contributed less than the average of other group members) and antisocial punishment (i.e., punishing those who contributed more than the average of other group members’) and used the Mann-Whitney test to analyze the differences between the two punishment types under the two conditions. The mediation of the two punishment types between partner presence and change in contribution deviation was also analyzed.

Results

Level and consistency of cooperation

The results of the Mann-Whitney U test showed that the average contribution in the NPP condition (14.52 ± 6.04) was not significantly different from that in the PP condition (15.15 ± 5.38), Z = -1.867, p = 0.062, n = 2640, indicating that the presence of partners did not affect the average cooperation level when punishment was available (see Fig. 3a).

However, the results of the Chi-square test revealed a significant difference in the distribution of contribution deviations between the two conditions, χ² = 38.698, df = 4, p < 0.001, indicating that the presence of partners increased the consistency of cooperation when punishment was available. Post-hoc comparison (using Z-test) showed that except for the [2,8) interval, the proportion of contribution deviations in each interval was significantly different between the two conditions (p < 0.05, see Fig. 3b).

Trend of cooperation and formation of group norms

The results of GEE (see Table 2) showed that the triple interaction of Condition, Stage and Round was not significant (Wald χ2 = 0.722, df = 1, p = 0.396), indicating that in the two stages, the variation of contribution with rounds under the two conditions were similar (see Fig. 4). The results also showed a significant interaction between Stage and Round (Wald χ2 = 17.565, df = 1, p < 0.001). The contribution in the early stage exhibited a significant upward trend (β = 0.174, SE = 0.069, p = 0.011), while the contribution trend in the late stage was more gentle (β = − 0.184, SE = 0.092, p = 0.045). In other words, there was no significant difference in the contribution trend between the two conditions whether in the first or the last 15 rounds of the game. Under both conditions, the contribution level increased in the early stage before gradually slowing down and stabilizing in the late stage.

Table 2

Generalized estimating equations for the regression of condition, stage, and round on contribution when punishment was available.
Factor	Coef.	Standard Error	Estimated [95% CI]	Wald χ2	p
intercept	12.767	0.583	[11.931, 14.215]	862.428	0
Condition	0.63	0.903	[-1.139, 2.400]	0.026	0.873
Stage	-0.777	0.354	[-0.207, -0.082]	13.045	0
Round	0.118	0.027	[0.056, 0.171]	19.883	0
Condition * Stage	-0.544	0.706	[-1.928, 0.840]	0.341	0.559
Condition * Round	0.073	0.053	[-0.031, 0.177]	17.565	0
Stage * Round	-0.231	0.055	[-0.339, -0.122]	1.894	0.169
Conditions * Stage * Round	-0.094	0.11	[-0.309, 0.122]	0.722	0.396

Punishment

The results of the Mann-Whitney U tests indicated that there was no significant difference in the total punishment between the NPP condition and the PP condition (Z = − 1.027, p = 0.304). However, the two conditions showed differences in altruistic punishment and antisocial punishment: under the partners-present condition, the altruistic punishment diminished (Z = -2.641, p = 0.008) and the antisocial punishment intensified (Z = -4.071, p < 0.001, see Fig. 5).

In order to further determine whether partner presence affected the consistency of cooperation by altering the punishment intensity, we took the condition (NPP = 1; PP = 2) as the independent variable, the altruistic punishment score and the antisocial punishment score received by participants as two parallel mediating variables, and the variation of contribution deviations (i.e., the difference in the absolute value of contribution deviation between the current round and the next round, with larger values indicating the contribution after being punished was closer to the average of the other members) as the dependent variable and conducted the mediating effect analysis using Model 4 in the Process (Hayes, 2012) of SPSS.

Regression analysis (see Table 3) revealed that partner presence could positively predict the antisocial punishment (β = 0.2609, p < 0.001) and negatively predict the altruistic punishment received by participants (β = -0.2024, p < 0.001). When simultaneously predicting the variation of contribution deviations, both the antisocial punishment (β = 0.1669, p = 0.0038) and the altruistic punishment (β = 0.7321, p < 0.001) had positive predictive effect, but the presence of partners had no effect (β = 0.0290, p = 0.827). Moreover, the predictive effect of altruistic punishment was greater, leading to larger variation of contribution deviations. The Bootstrap sampling was used to test the significance of the mediating effects. The results (see Fig. 6) showed that the indirect effect of the path with antisocial punishment as the mediating variable was 0.0436 (95% CI = [0.0116, 0.0823]) and the indirect effect of the path with altruistic punishment as the mediating variable was − 0.1482 (95% CI = [0.2223, 0.0772]), both of which were significant. In short, in the presence of partners, more antisocial punishments with weaker effect and less altruistic punishments with stronger effect were used to fine-tune deviant behavior.

Table 3

Results of regression analyses among variables
Regression Equation		Fitting Index			Coefficient and Significance
Dependent variables	Independent variables	R	R²	F	β	t	p
Variation of contribution deviation	Condition	0.01	0	0.31	-0.076	0.557	0.578
Antisocial punishment	Condition	0.096	0.009	28.846	0.261	5.371	0
Altruistic punishment	Condition	0.076	0.006	17.819	-0.202	-4.221	0
Variation of contribution deviation	Condition	0.233	0.054	59.13	0.029	0.219	0.827
	Antisocial punishment				0.167	2.899	0.004
	Altruistic punishment				0.732	12.548	0

Brief summary

The results of Experiment 2 demonstrated that when punishment was available, contributions under both conditions showed a trend of rising in the early stage before gradually stabilizing in the late stage, indicating the formation of a cooperative norm among the group members. Although partner presence did not have a significant impact on contribution level, it could significantly increase the members’ consistency of cooperation. In addition, although partner presence did not change the total expenditure of punishment, it altered the composition of punishment by increasing antisocial punishment and reducing altruistic punishment, which promoted participants’ contribution to be closer to group cooperative norms.

This study used the repeated public goods game to investigate the effects of partner presence on cooperation and norm formation where punishment was available or not, respectively.

The influence of partner presence on cooperation and norm formation

Experiment 1 revealed that when there was no punishment, the presence of partners significantly improved people's cooperation level. This is consistent with previous finding that people become more cooperative in the presence of others (Alpizar et al., 2008; Andreoni & Petrie, 2004; Haley & Fessler, 2005; Rigdon et al., 2009). This study further found that the effect of this improvement gradually weakened with the repetition of interaction, and the mere presence of partners did not improve members’ consistency of cooperation.

According to Hoffman et al.(Hoffman et al., 1996), the subconscious and preconceived reciprocity norms link the social experience and reputation in the real world with the experiment in the laboratory, and the presence of partners makes people more conscious of the reciprocity norms. A similar view can be found in the social heuristics hypothesis (Rand et al., 2014) that people internalize strategies that are advantageous and successful in daily social interactions (e.g., cooperation is a superior strategy in most civilized societies) and bring them into atypical social situations (e.g., most laboratory experiments). The social heuristics hypothesis also notes that the deliberative processing may override these generalized automatic reactions, changing participants’ behavior to the most favorable actions in the situation (Rand, 2016). Compared with the absence of partners, people need to process more nonverbal signals from other members (e.g., identity cues and facial expression hints) in the presence of partners, which facilitates the activation of intuitive system and encourages people to make cooperative decisions. However, the significance of partner presence diminishes over time as players grow acclimated to these cues and gradually switch from intuitive cooperation to deliberative thought. This study found that partner presence can improve people's awareness of following reciprocal norms, but it is insufficient to maintain a high level of cooperation and promote the formation of cooperative norms in repeated interactions.

The influence of partner presence on cooperation and norm formation when punishment was available

In Experiment 2 where punishment was available, contributions did tend to remain steady until the later stage of interaction regardless of the presence or absence of partners. This is consistent with previous studies (Fehr & Gächter, 2000) and supports the idea that punishment could promote the formation of group norms. Although the presence of partner could not significantly improve the level of cooperation at this time, it could increase the members’ consistency of cooperation and strengthen the group norms. Therefore, we believe that although people have a sense of adhering to social norms, partner presence alone is insufficient to develop or maintain such norms and requires the assistance of punishment.

This study found that although partner presence did not affect the total punishment, it weakened the altruistic punishment and intensified the antisocial punishment. The results of mediation analysis showed that both the two punishment types positively predicted the improvement of group members’ contribution consistency. We believe that, at least in the context of this study, the two kinds of punishment were driven by the same motivation for their partners to behave in conformity with group norms. Combined with the findings of Experiment 1, we speculate that the presence of partners improved the awareness of group members to follow the reciprocal norms, which increased contributions from those who might not have attained group norms and decreased "altruistic punishment" for low contributions. At the same time, people did not want someone to contribute excessively because that would go against the group’s accepted norms. Therefore, in the presence of partners, people need to use the means of antisocial punishment to fine-tune the cooperative behavior of group members, so as to reduce people's contribution deviation and maintain the average contribution within the group at the normative level. In short, we believe that the change of punishment behavior due to partner presence may be related to the consistency of norms (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2004). Both the antisocial punishment and the altruistic punishment are tools to form norms, and partner presence induces greater conformity to group norms by altering the application of these two punishments.

However, participants’ motivation and normative awareness were not assessed in this study. The presence of partners may enhance self-consideration under social comparison (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2004). People did not want to appear not good enough under comparison, so they punished those who contributed more. The presence of partners may also complicate the decision-making environment, so that people were more likely to behave emotionally and irrationally (Liu & Hao, 2011), which may also be a reason for reducing altruistic punishment and increasing antisocial punishment. The limitations of this study in distinguishing these possibilities need to be addressed by further research.

Research on cooperation and punishment in the presence of partners can help us better understand the cooperative interactions and norm-building processes in daily life (Abbink et al., 2017). The presence of partners can strengthen the consistent contribution behavior under punishment, which is regarded as the norm within the group. This also enlightens us that when punishment is needed to form a group behavior or social norm, it should be carried out in the presence of partners as much as possible. Previous studies have shown that it is not punishment but norms that prescribes individual behavior, and that material punishment serves as a complementary mechanism to make the consequences of violating norms more certain, which helps maintain cooperation. So human cooperation is the interaction of normative psychology and instrumental decision-making (Andrighetto et al., 2013). Future research can also consider whether behavioral norms formed by other means besides punishment will also be strengthened in the presence of partners. In the post-epidemic era, cooperation with partners not present is increasing due to the restriction of epidemic prevention, which may reduce the level of cooperation and discourage norm formation on a worldwide scale. How to overcome these disadvantages is a question that needs to be addressed in the next step.

In the absence of punishment, partner presence can temporarily improve the level of group cooperation, but is not sufficient to form group norms. When punishment is available, partner presence does not change the level of group cooperation, but can increase the consistency of cooperative behavior by altering the use of altruistic punishment and antisocial punishments, making people’s contributions more focused on the normative level.

The authors declared that there was no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. LQ20C090009 and the Research Start-up Funds of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University under Grant No. 18062305-Y.

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The influence of partner presence on cooperation and norm formation

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Abstract

Figures

Introduction

Experiment 1: The Influence Of Partner Presence On Cooperation And Norm Formation In The Repeated Public Goods Game

Methods

Participants

Procedure

Data analyses

Results

Level and consistency of cooperation

Trend of cooperation and formation of group norms

Brief summary

Experiment 2: The Influence Of Partner Presence On Punishment, Cooperation, And Norm Formation In The Repeated Public Goods Game

Methods

Participants

Procedure

Data analyses

Results

Level and consistency of cooperation

Trend of cooperation and formation of group norms

Punishment

Brief summary

General Discussion

The influence of partner presence on cooperation and norm formation

The influence of partner presence on cooperation and norm formation when punishment was available

Conclusion

Declarations

References

Additional Declarations

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