Department of Sociology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 14, 3584 CH, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Department of Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Sci Rep. 2020 Oct 7;10(1):16702. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-73314-7.
Norms can promote human cooperation to provide public goods. Yet, the potential of norms to promote cooperation may be limited to homogeneous groups in which all members benefit equally from the public good. Individual heterogeneity in the benefits of public good provision is commonly conjectured to bring about normative disagreements that harm cooperation. However, the role of these normative disagreements remains unclear because they are rarely directly measured or manipulated. In a laboratory experiment, we first measure participants' views on the appropriate way to contribute to a public good with heterogeneous returns. We then use this information to sort people into groups that either agree or disagree on these views, thereby manipulating group-level disagreement on normative views. Participants subsequently make several incentivized contribution decisions in a public goods game with peer punishment. We find that although there are considerable disagreements about individual contribution levels in heterogeneous groups, these disagreements do not impede cooperation. While cooperation is maintained because low contributors are punished, participants do not use punishment to impose their normative views on others. The contribution levels at which groups cooperate strongly relate to the average normative views of these groups.
规范可以促进人类合作，提供公共产品。然而，规范促进合作的潜力可能仅限于所有成员都平等受益于公共产品的同质群体。普遍认为，公共产品提供的利益存在个体异质性，这会导致规范上的分歧，从而损害合作。然而，由于这些规范上的分歧很少被直接测量或操纵，因此它们的作用仍不清楚。在一项实验室实验中，我们首先用衡量参与者对有差异回报的公共产品的适当贡献方式的看法。然后，我们利用这些信息将人们分成在这些观点上达成一致或存在分歧的群体，从而在规范观点上操纵群体层面的分歧。参与者随后在具有同伴惩罚的公共物品博弈中做出多次激励性的贡献决策。我们发现，尽管在异质群体中存在着相当大的个体贡献水平的分歧，但这些分歧并没有阻碍合作。虽然合作是因为低贡献者受到惩罚而得以维持，但参与者并没有利用惩罚将他们的规范观点强加给别人。群体合作的贡献水平与这些群体的平均规范观点密切相关。
