I Can Feel You - How Experience Shapes Third- Party Punishment
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| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | In this paper, we experimentally investigate the effect of a previous experience on third-party punishment decisions. Third-party punishment serves as an enforcement mechanism of social norms and depends on emotions. Therefore, it is important to understand how these social norm perceptions and emotions arise. We posit that a previous experience plays a crucial role herein. We design an online experiment, in which we measure the difference in the willingness to punish a dictator in a dictator game. We compare the case in which subjects have no experience with the case in which they experience different transfers, either as observers or receivers in a previous dictator game. We find that receiving a low transfer changes both norm perceptions and emotions. Most dominantly is the change in empirical expectations especially after receiving or observing a transfer of 0. Empirical expectations are the main driver for punishment decisions, yet less for females, whose personal norms are more important. After observing a transfer of 0, norms are shifted downwards and punishment decisions are lower. Receiving a transfer of 0 arouses negative emotions, increases punishment decisions, and hence can cancel out the norm updating effect depending on the intensity of the change of norms and emotions. We, therefore, find evidence both for norm-based and emotion-based third-party punishment that is triggered after an experience. |
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