The Cultural Logic of Honor and Antisocial Punishment in Social Dilemmas: A Multi-Lab Study Across Three World Regions
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Punishment can sustain cooperation by targeting free riders (prosocial punishment), but it may also backfire by triggering retaliation; and when punishment is directed at cooperators (antisocial punishment), it can lead to a decline in cooperation. Samples exhibiting greater antisocial punishment in previous research have tended to come from societies where honor is believed to play a stronger role in shaping social behavior. Here, we tested the role of honor in antisocial punishment through a preregistered multi-lab experiment conducted in Egypt (n = 266), South Korea (n = 212), and the United Kingdom (n = 192), using public goods games with and without punishment. While the level of antisocial punishment was higher among the Egyptian sample, compared to the South Korean and British samples, individual-level honor values and norms were not associated with antisocial punishment across all three samples. Nevertheless, individuals with stronger personal honor values exhibited heightened retaliation, particularly targeting cooperators after being punished unfairly. These findings suggest that honor is not a cultural aspiration that provokes, nor a norm that prescribes, aggression toward cooperators, but rather a cultural logic that shapes when and for whom punishment becomes a tool of harmful retaliation rather than cooperation enforcement.
Source: PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints)
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7221484631