Creating sanctioning norms in the lab: The influence of descriptive norms and the bad apple effect in third-party punishment

third-party punishment is a form of peer-to-peer sanctioning that is influenced by descriptive norms. The present study aims to investigate how aggregate peer punishment and the presence of a free rider who never punishes influences the formation of third-party punishment norms. Participants were exposed to social feedback indicating either low, high, or high & free rider peer punishment. Over time, participants conformed to average peer punishment leading to the emergence and persistence of different sanctioning norms in each group. The presence of one free rider significantly reduced the average punishment and increased the frequency of free riding behavior. These findings highlight the critical role of descriptive norms and suggest the presence of a ‘bad apple’ effect in third-party punishment

Author Correction: Interplay between different forms of power and meritocratic considerations shapes fairness perceptions

Correction to: Scientific Reports https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-15613-9, published online 06 July 2022The Acknowledgements section in the original version of this Article was incomplete. “We thank Katerina Petkanopoulou for her valuable comments.” now reads: “We thank Katerina Petkanopoulou for her valuable comments. Financial support was provided by the EU Horizon 2020 Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (Proposal Number: 895685) to G.L." The original Article has been corrected

Explaining inequality tolerance in the lab: effects of political efficacy and prospects of mobility on collective demand for redistribution

Abstract The low public demand for redistribution despite growing economic inequality has been characterized as a paradox especially for disadvantaged individuals. One prominent explanation for people’s tolerance to growing inequality posits that increased optimism about prospects of upward mobility undermines support for redistribution. A less explored explanation postulates that low political efficacy of disadvantaged individuals to enact meaningful change erodes collective demand for redistribution. In two preregistered experiments, we create a dynamic environment where low-income individuals collectively demand income redistribution by contributing to a public pool (collective action strategy), compete with each other for high-income group positions (individual mobility strategy), or avoid risks and disengage from both strategies (social inaction strategy). Lack of political efficacy, operationalized as high redistribution thresholds, gradually curtailed collective action, while exposure to high prospects of mobility did not influence collective action even when income group boundaries were highly permeable. Across participants, we identified three behavioral types (i.e., “mobility seekers”, “egalitarians”, and “disillusioned”) whose prevalence was affected by political efficacy but not by prospects of mobility or actual group permeability. These results cast doubt on the universality of the prospects of mobility hypothesis and highlight the prominent role of political inequality in the perpetuation of economic inequality