Rationality and Society

Why do individuals engage in surprisingly costly aggression? Theory and research suggest that individuals aggress in order to establish a reputation as a strong competitor and thereby deter aggression from others. However, we know little about whether these reputational concerns lead individuals to initiate aggression or instead to reciprocate when challenged. Correspondingly, it is unclear whether initiating or reciprocating aggression provides greater reputational benefits. This study uses a behavioral experiment to investigate these questions and finds that (1) the opportunity to earn a reputation for reciprocating aggression increases aggressive behavior, while the opportunity to earn a reputation for initiating aggression does not; (2) reputations for reciprocating aggression more effectively deter aggression from interaction partners than reputations for initiating aggression; (3) reputations for reciprocating aggression are perceived as more convincing signals of underlying competitive ability than reputations for initiating aggression; and (4) individual competitive ability is an important moderator of the effect of reputation systems on aggressive behavior. The findings clarify the mechanism by which reputation systems promote aggressive behavior and help explain how the type of information available in a reputation system shapes levels of aggression.

Why do states fail? Why do failed states persist without collapsing into complete anarchy? This paper argues that in response to insurgency or weakened state capacity, the best way for rulers to sustain their rule may be, paradoxically, to reduce the amount of political protection they provide to clients or citizens. This behavior recognizes and helps explain a puzzling feature of failed states, namely that central government often functions even when political disorder prevails. To evaluate this argument, the paper analyzes the case of King Stephen’s reign in medieval England. In response to a challenge to his succession, King Stephen dramatically decentralized government, a decision which has long puzzled historians. In addition, although far removed historically from contemporary cases, the reign of King Stephen exhibits just those characteristics of modern, failed states: insurgency, civil war, territorial fragmentation, increasing disorder and violence (even between adherents of the same side of the civil conflict), and yet the persistence of some amount of centralized rule.

The evolution of large-scale cooperation among strangers is a fundamental unanswered question in the social sciences. Behavioral economics has persuasively shown that the so-called strong reciprocity plays a key role in accounting for the endogenous enforcement of cooperation. Insofar as strongly reciprocal players are willing to costly sanction defectors, cooperation flourishes. However, experimental evidence unambiguously indicates that not only defection and strong reciprocity, but also unconditional cooperation without punishment is a quantitatively important behavioral attitude. By referring to a prisoner’s dilemma framework where punishment (“stick”) and rewarding (“carrot”) options are available, here we show analytically that the presence of cooperators who don’t punish in the population makes altruistic punishment evolutionarily weak. We show that cooperation breaks down and strong reciprocity is maladaptive if costly punishment means “punishing defectors” and, even more so, if it is coupled with costly rewarding of cooperators. In contrast, punishers do not perish if cooperators, far from being rewarded, are sanctioned. These results, based on an extended notion of strong reciprocity, challenge evolutionary explanations of cooperation that overlook the “dark side” of altruistic behavior.

Those who study vote choice in presidential nominating contests often ask, “Are voters sincere (voting with their ‘true’ preferences), are they sophisticated (giving more weight to a candidate’s chances of winning the nomination), or are they strategic (placing greater value on a candidate’s chances of winning a general election)?” By analyzing survey data from the 1984, 1988, 2000, and 2004 presidential nominating contests, this study argues that voters are more strategic than previously understood, and that prior studies, confined by methodology and data, are often mistaken when they maintain that primary voters are sophisticated. In actuality, primary voters are more likely to cast strategic votes, and not sophisticated ones.