Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Social learning promotes institutions for governing the commons

Nature volume 466, pages 861–863 (2010)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Theoretical and empirical research highlights the role of punishment in promoting collaborative efforts1,2,3,4,5. However, both the emergence and the stability of costly punishment are problematic issues. It is not clear how punishers can invade a society of defectors by social learning or natural selection, or how second-order free-riders (who contribute to the joint effort but not to the sanctions) can be prevented from drifting into a coercion-based regime and subverting cooperation. Here we compare the prevailing model of peer-punishment6,7,8 with pool-punishment, which consists in committing resources, before the collaborative effort, to prepare sanctions against free-riders. Pool-punishment facilitates the sanctioning of second-order free-riders, because these are exposed even if everyone contributes to the common good. In the absence of such second-order punishment, peer-punishers do better than pool-punishers; but with second-order punishment, the situation is reversed. Efficiency is traded for stability. Neither other-regarding tendencies or preferences for reciprocity and equity, nor group selection or prescriptions from higher authorities, are necessary for the emergence and stability of rudimentary forms of sanctioning institutions regulating common pool resources and enforcing collaborative efforts.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Time evolution of the competition between peer-punishment and pool-punishment.
Figure 2: Pool-punishment in compulsory and voluntary PGGs.
Figure 3: The competition between peer- and pool-punishers in voluntary PGGs.

References

  1. Fehr, E. & Gächter, S. Cooperation and punishment in public good experiments. Am. Econ. Rev. 90, 980–994 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Rockenbach, B. & Milinski, M. The efficient interaction of indirect reciprocity and costly punishment. Nature 444, 718–723 (2006)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Gächter, S., Renner, E. & Sefton, M. The long-run benefits of punishment. Science 322, 1510–1512 (2008)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Henrich, J. et al. Costly punishment across human societies. Science 312, 1767–1770 (2006)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Herrmann, B., Thoeni, C. & Gächter, S. Antisocial punishment across societies. Science 319, 1362–1367 (2008)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Fehr, E. & Gächter, S. Altruistic punishment in humans. Nature 415, 137–140 (2002)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Gardner, A. & West, S. A. Cooperation and punishment, especially in humans. Am. Nat. 164, 753–764 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Egas, M. & Riedl, A. The economics of altruistic punishment and the maintenance of cooperation. Proc. R. Soc. B 275, 871–878 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Fehr, E. & Rockenbach, B. Detrimental effects of sanctions on human altruism. Nature 422, 137–140 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Boyd, R., Gintis, H., Bowles, S. & Richerson, P. The evolution of altruistic punishment. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 100, 3531–3535 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Fowler, J. H. Altruistic punishment and the origin of cooperation. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 102, 7047–7049 (2005)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Nakamaru, M. & Iwasa, Y. The evolution of altruism and punishment: role of the selfish punisher. J. Theor. Biol. 240, 475–488 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Lehmann, L., Rousset, F., Roze, D. & Keller, L. Strong reciprocity or strong ferocity? A population genetic view of the evolution of altruistic punishment. Am. Nat. 170, 21–36 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. Punishment allows the evolution of cooperation (or anything else) in sizable groups. Ethol. Sociobiol. 13, 171–195 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Yamagishi, T. The provision of a sanctioning system as a public good. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 51, 110–116 (1986)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Ostrom, E. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  17. Hauert, C., Traulsen, A., Nowak, M. A. & Brandt, H. H. &. Sigmund, K. Via freedom to coercion: the emergence of costly punishment. Science 316, 1905–1907 (2007)

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmary, E. The Major Transitions in Evolution (Oxford Univ. Press, 1997)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Frank, S. A. Mutual policing and repression of competition in the evolution of cooperative groups. Nature 377, 520–522 (1995)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Levin, S. A. (ed.) Games, Groups, and the Global Good (Springer, 2009)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  21. Falk, A., Fehr, E. & Fischbacher, U. in The Drama of the Commons (eds Ostrom, L. et al.) 157–191 (National Academy, 2002)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Mathew, S. & Boyd, R. When does optional participation allow the evolution of cooperation? Proc. R. Soc. B 276, 1167–1174 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Boyd, R., Gintis, H. & Bowles, S. Coordinated punishment of defectors sustains cooperation and can proliferate when rare. Science 328, 617–620 (2010)

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Orbell, J. H. & Dawes, R. M. Social welfare, cooperator’s advantage, and the option of not playing the game. Am. Sociol. Rev. 58, 787–800 (1993)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Hauert, C., De Monte, S., Hofbauer, J. & Sigmund, K. Volunteering as a Red Queen mechanism for cooperation. Science 296, 1129–1132 (2002)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Semmann, D., Krambeck, H. J. & Milinski, M. Volunteering leads to rock–paper–scissors dynamics in a public goods game. Nature 425, 390–393 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  27. Kiyonari, T., Barclay, P., Wilson, M. & Daly, D. Second order punishment in one-shot prisoner’s dilemma. Int. J. Psychol. 39, 329–334 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Gürerk, O., Irlenbush, B. & Rockenbach, B. The competitive advantage of sanctioning institutions. Science 312, 108–111 (2006)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  29. Ertan, A., Page, T. & Putterman, L. Who to punish? Individual decisions and majority rule in mitigating the free rider problem. Eur. Econ. Rev. 53, 495–511 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Kosfeld, M., Riedl, A. & Okada, A. Institution formation in public goods games. Am. Econ. Rev. 99, 1335–1355 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

K.S. acknowledges TECT I-104 G15, A.T. thanks the Emmy Noether programme of the DFG and C.H. thanks NSERC (Canada).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Mathematics, University of Vienna, Vienna, A-1090, Austria

    Karl Sigmund

  2. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, A-2361, Austria

    Karl Sigmund

  3. WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business), Vienna, A-1090, Austria

    Hannelore De Silva

  4. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Ploen, 24306, Germany

    Arne Traulsen

  5. Department of Mathematics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British ColumbiaV6T 1Z2, Canada,

    Christoph Hauert

Authors
  1. Karl Sigmund
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Hannelore De Silva
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Arne Traulsen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Christoph Hauert
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

All authors were involved in the design and analysis of the model. H.D.S. and C.H. ran the simulations, A.T. and C.H. did the numerical analysis, and K.S. wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karl Sigmund.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Figure 1 with legend, Supplementary Data and References. (PDF 217 kb)

PowerPoint slides

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Sigmund, K., De Silva, H., Traulsen, A. et al. Social learning promotes institutions for governing the commons. Nature 466, 861–863 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09203

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09203

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing