tively “solve” the problem.
Four categories of deci-
sion-makers emerged. There
were the altruists, who invested
more than their fair share. The
cooperators readily ponied up
their 40 points to the collective.
Individualists stuck to their guns,
preferring to pay the individual
amount rather than contribute to
a collective. And then there were
the free riders. They invested
less than their share of at least
40 points in the collective pool
(perhaps keeping 70 or 80
points for themselves) but still
reaped benefits from altruists
making up the difference, which
Gross describes as an “optimal
strategy” (economically speak-
ing) for an individual. He gives
cutting carbon dioxide emissions
as an example: a free rider who
personally takes few steps to
limit carbon dioxide emissions
will still benefit when others
make great efforts to do so.
In such a situation, peer
pressure might be expected to
operate most on the free-riding
slackers, but that’s not what
happened. In one set of games,
Gross and De Dreu allowed
players to punish each other by
dinging them with up to five
“peer punishments.” Each
punishment decreased the take
for the punisher by one reward
point but cost the punished peer
three points.
The free riders might seem
like the obvious targets for this
peer punishment, but they
weren’t. Instead, the “punish-
ment” turned into an expensive
feuding between the altruists,
who meted out the most punish-
ments, and individualists, whom
the altruists targeted. Mean-
while, the free riders and those
who stuck to contributing only
their fair share hung back. The
feuding increased costs for the
collective as a whole, which the
authors say calls into question
how effective unfettered peer
punishment is in real life.
The peer pressure worked on
individualists, though, Gross
says. “Peer punishment ‘forced’
them into cooperation, but they
were less willing to enforce
cooperation in others,” he says,
with the result that free riders
still continued without paying
their fair share.Varnum says such an outcome
needs consideration in the
context of earlier findings
showing culture-based differ-
ences in the effects of peer
punishment. These earlier
results showed that in a collec-
tivist society with a default
expectation of community
participation, punishment
reduces free-rider behavior. In
individualistic cultures, however,
punishment does not influence
freeloading behaviors. Varnum
says that a future study might
investigate how the same study
methods would play out in
societies that are largely collec-
tivist, such as India, China or
Japan as opposed to the
Netherlands.
—Emily WillinghamN EWS