Anonymity and Altruistic Punishment

1. Anonymity and Altruistic Punishment Piazza, J., & Bering, M.J. (2008). The effects of perceived anonymity on altruistic punishment. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 6(3), 487-501. • Kaytlyn McBride, Maiya Guillory & Steve Zigtema

2. Introduction • Past research suggests that anonymity boosts selfish and anti-normative behavior • People often punish norm-violators no matter the cost- even when the violator’s actions do not directly effect the punisher (i.e. altruistic punishment) • The researchers set up a study which clearly distinguished between a breach of privacy and a breach of anonymity to see the extent to which perceptions of privacy motivates social behavior

3. Study • Participants played an economic “dictator” game • Told of two other players (distributor & recipient) who are not actually real. The distributor kept all 10 coins for himself. Participant has 5 coins in which they can keep or choose an amount to give to recipient; every 1 coin they leave for recipient, 2 coins are deducted from the distributor. • Three conditions: • 1) Control - participant’s decision and identity kept secret • 2) Privacy Breach - decision told to anonymous recipient but identity kept secret • 3)Anonymity Breach - decision and identity made known to recipient

4. Video • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZHN8xyp6Y0

5. Results and Implications • Punishment observed most often in Anonymity Breach Condition; with full punishment (giving away all 5 coins) found 35.7% in Privacy Breach Condition and 28.6% in Anonymity Breach Condition • Most common reasons for punishment: fairness and justice • A breach of privacy promotes altruistic punishment similar to that of a breach of anonymity likely because of its reputational consequences in the ancestral past. • Findings match the Evolutionary Legacy Hypothesis, which states that it is difficult, if not impossible, to secure anonymity in the ancestral past. This may have led a bias in the human mind to react to a breach of privacy as if it is a breach of anonymity.

6. Critical Review • Agreements • Our group agrees with the finding and conclusion the researchers drew from the study, namely, that upon a breach in privacy would result in more altruistic behaviors. They highlight this by pointing to the idea that humans would need to engage in altruism when encountering other unknown humans so that they would be known or have a reputation of a “giver” rather than a “taker”, and therefore would be valuable to the society. • Our groups found it interesting that the researchers demonstrated that even though the control group had lower levels of altruistic punishment, the majority punished to some extent. Our group agrees with the researchers in that this could be the result of behavioral dispositions for reciprocity that evolved through group selection. Meaning that the disposition to punish even when there is exists no immediate or future rewards is passed along through group selections. • Disagreements • Our group thought that the researchers did not make a strong argument for the emotions the participants felt when making the decision to punish. They asked participants which emotions they felt while making their decision, but there are two problems with this. First, they did not ask the participants their emotions while they were making their decisions, but rather after they had made their decisions. This could have skewed the results because the participants would be making statements in retrospect or hindsight which could potentially be misleading. Secondly, the participants had to choose from a list of words about the emotions they felt, which could potentially limit their response and therefore lead to incorrect assumption of their responses.

7. Discussion Questions • Do you think the amount of people watching effects the extent to which one altruistically punishes a norm-violator? • Do you think the use of phones help a person achieve more anonymity or does the use of a chat program such as Facebook help a person achieve more anonymity? • The authors suggest that anonymity was harder to find in ancestral times. Do you think our access to anonymity has positively or negatively changed us?