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The benefit of the doubt: willful ignorance and altruistic punishment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Robert Stüber Open the ORCID record for Robert Stüber [Opens in a new window]
Robert Stüber*
Affiliation:
WZB, Reichpietschufer 50, 10785 Berlin, Germany
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[email protected]
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Abstract

Altruistic punishment is often thought to be a major enforcement mechanism of social norms. I present experimental results from a modified version of the dictator game with third-party punishment, in which third parties can remain ignorant about the choice of the dictator. I find that a substantial fraction of subjects choose not to reveal the dictator’s choice and not to punish the dictator. I show that this behavior is in line with the social norms that prevail in a situation of initial ignorance. Remaining ignorant and choosing not to punish is not inappropriate. As a result, altruistic punishment is significantly lower when the dictator’s choice is initially hidden. The decrease in altruistic punishment leads to more selfish dictator behavior only if dictators are explicitly informed about the effect of willful ignorance on punishment rates. Hence, in scenarios in which third parties can ignore information and dictators know what this implies, third-party punishment may only ineffectively enforce social norms.

Keywords

Third-party punishmentWillful ignoranceSortingSocial preference

JEL classification

D63: Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement D01: Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior D83: Search • Learning • Information and Knowledge • Communication • Belief • Unawareness
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 848 - 872
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-019-09633-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

I am grateful to Philipp Albert, Kai Barron, Björn Bartling, Alexander Cappelen, Marvin Deversi, Urs Fischbacher, Zack Grossman, Rustamdjan Hakimov, Erin Krupka, Dorothea Kübler, Homayoon Moradi, Lisa Spantig, Kristina Strohmaier, Joël van der Weele, Justin Valasek, Roel van Veldhuizen and seminar participants at the ESA World Meeting 2018, the IMEBESS 2018, the SABE/IAREP 2018, the Lisbon Meeting in Economics and Political Science 2018, the theem 2019, and the Berlin Behavioral Economics Workshop for their helpful suggestions. I am also very thankful to Jennifer Rontganger for copy editing.

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