Faculty of Law, Economics and Humanities, Kagoshima University, 1-21-30, Korimoto, Kagoshima 890-0065, Japan.
School of Psychology Practices, College of Integrated Human and Social Welfare Studies, Shukutoku University, 200, Daiganji-cho, Chuo-ku, Chiba 260-8701, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2016 Dec 9;6:38349. doi: 10.1038/srep38349.
Punishment of non-cooperators-free riders-can lead to high cooperation in public goods games (PGG). However, second-order free riders, who do not pay punishment costs, reduce the effectiveness of punishment. Here we introduce a "leader support system," in which one group leader can freely punish group followers using capital pooled through the support of group followers. In our experiment, participants engage in three stages repeatedly: a PGG stage in which followers decide to cooperate for their group; a support stage in which followers decide whether to support the leader; and a punishment stage in which the leader can punish any follower. We compare a support-present condition with a no-support condition, in which there is an external source for the leader's punishment. The results show that punishment occurs more frequently in the support-present condition than the no-support condition. Within the former, both higher cooperation and higher support for a leader are achieved under linkage-type leaders-who punish both non-cooperators and non-supporters. In addition, linkage-type leaders themselves earn higher profits than other leader types because they withdraw more support. This means that leaders who effectively punish followers could increase their own benefits and the second-order free rider problem would be solved.
对不合作者（搭便车者）的惩罚可以导致公共物品博弈（PGG）中的高合作率。然而，不支付惩罚成本的二阶搭便车者会降低惩罚的效果。在这里，我们引入了一种“领导支持系统”，其中一个组长可以自由地惩罚使用组内追随者支持筹集的资金的组内追随者。在我们的实验中，参与者反复进行三个阶段：追随者为他们的团队决定合作的 PGG 阶段；追随者决定是否支持组长的支持阶段；以及组长可以惩罚任何追随者的惩罚阶段。我们将有支持的条件与没有支持的条件进行比较，在后者中，组长的惩罚有外部来源。结果表明，在有支持的条件下，惩罚比没有支持的条件更频繁地发生。在前者中，在链接型领导者（既惩罚不合作者又惩罚不支持者）的领导下，合作率更高，对领导者的支持也更高。此外，链接型领导者自身获得的收益高于其他领导者类型，因为他们获得了更多的支持。这意味着，能够有效惩罚追随者的领导者可以增加自己的利益，从而解决二阶搭便车问题。
