Monday, March 12, 2012

Why we coerce

Rewards and punishments can cajole people into cooperating, but they are costly to implement.  A theoretical study finds that, when participation in group activities is optional, punishing uncooperative behavior is the cheaper method.
—Simon Gachter (Nature, March 2012) summarizing research by Sasaki et. al. in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2012.  

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