The Asymmetric Roles Of Punishment And Reward In The Centralized Sanctions

Aims: In this study,we add the centralized sanctions(third-party sanctions)to repeat public goods game in order to observe how different patterns of third-party reward and third-party punishment affect public cooperation and the profit of organization with sufficient information.Moreover,through examing the influences of different reward and punishment on cooperative behavior patterns,our study explored the asymmetric roles of reward and punishment in the centralized sanctions.Methods: This study used repeat public goods game as basic experiment framework.It is consisted of three parts.The first part discussed the influence of the different patterns of third-party punishment on public cooperation.The first part included five treatment groups: the control group,low punishment group,high punishment group,low random punishment group and high random punishment group.We investigated and compared the differences in cooperation,profit and cooperative behaviors between different treatment groups.The second part discussed the influence of the different patterns of third-party reward on public cooperation.The second part included five treatment groups: the control group,low reward group,high reward group,low random reward group and high random reward group.We investigated and compared the differences in cooperation,profit and cooperative behaviors between different treatment groups.The third part discussed the different influence of the same patterns of third-party punishment and third party reward on public cooperation.The third part consisted of total nine treatment groups: the control group,low reward and punishment,high reward and punishment,low random reward and punishment,high random reward and punishment.We investigated and compared different treatment groups on the cooperation level,profit and behavior patterns,as well as established a multiple linear regression model in order to analyze the mechanism under the cooperative behavior.Results:(1)Different patterns of reward and punishment could improve the level of cooperation,and there were significant differences in the level of cooperation among the groups;under the condition of sufficient information,high-intensity reward and punishment were superior to low-intensity reward and punishment,and non-random reward and punishment were superior to random reward and punishment.The same pattern of punishment could maintain a higher level of cooperation than the same pattern of reward.(2)Punishment had a better inhibitory effect on free riding.In each punishment treatment group,the proportion of free riding was significantly lower than that of the control group.The inhibitory effect of high-intensity punishment on free riding was the best.Different patterns of reward could not effectively inhibit the emergence of free riding behaviors.Except for the high random reward group,the proportion of free riding in other treatment groups was not significantly different from the control group.(3)High punishment could improve the payoff level to a certain extent,while low or random punishment would bring about a decline in payoff;different patterns of reward produced a large amount of reward and increased the payoff level.(4)Under different punishment patterns,high contributors were much more than low contributors.Over time,cooperative behavior became the dominant behavior;however,under the reward patterns,high contributors were less than half(16 people),which indicated subjects behaviors had great heterogeneity,and the cooperative behavior failed to become the dominant behavior.Conclusion:(1)Compare to reward,punishment achieved a higher level of cooperation at a lower cost.Under the condition of sufficient information,high-intensity and non-random punishment can maintain long-term and high-level cooperation.(2)Punishment had an effective inhibitory effect on free riding.Under the condition of sufficient information,punishment intensity was the main factor to promote cooperation and restrain free riding.Reward was ineffective in curbing free riding.(3)Under the punishment,the behaviors were highly consistent.Especially in the high-intensity and non-random punishment,people could quickly establish cooperative social norms to avoid punishment and ultimately achieve a higher profit.(4)Under the reward,the behaviors were heterogeneous,and reward couldn't promote people to form unified social norms.Besides,the large amount of reward caused the waste of resources.Therefore,the roles of reward and punishment in the centralized sanctions were different.