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Social norms and human cooperation.
Journal article

Social norms and human cooperation.

  • Fehr E University of Zurich, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, Blümlisalpstrasse 10, CH-8006 Zurich, Switzerland. efehr@iew.unizh.ch <efehr@iew.unizh.ch>
  • Fischbacher U
  • 2004-03-31
Published in:
  • Trends in cognitive sciences. - 2004
Cooperative Behavior
Games, Experimental
Humans
Interpersonal Relations
Social Behavior
Social Environment
English The existence of social norms is one of the big unsolved problems in social cognitive science. Although no other concept is invoked more frequently in the social sciences, we still know little about how social norms are formed, the forces determining their content, and the cognitive and emotional requirements that enable a species to establish and enforce social norms. In recent years, there has been substantial progress, however, on how cooperation norms are enforced. Here we review evidence showing that sanctions are decisive for norm enforcement, and that they are largely driven by non-selfish motives. Moreover, the explicit study of sanctioning behavior provides instruments for measuring social norms and has also led to deeper insights into the proximate and ultimate forces behind human cooperation.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/14115
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