Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 1, 2026
08:49
Murine Prostate Micro-dissection and Surgical Castration
Published on: May 11, 2016
Punishment sustains large-scale cooperation in prestate warfare
1Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. smathew@ucla.edu
Summary
Turkana warriors cooperate in raids through punishment of free-riders, challenging theories that cooperation only occurs in small, familiar groups. This suggests large-scale cooperation has deep evolutionary roots.
Area of Science:
- Anthropology
- Evolutionary Biology
- Sociology
Background:
- Understanding the origins of human cooperation is key to explaining societal development.
- Small-scale societies provide insights into early human social structures and behaviors.
- The role of punishment in sustaining cooperation in non-state societies is debated.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the mechanisms of cooperation and punishment in a small-scale society.
- To examine the scale and enforcement of cooperation in warfare among the Turkana.
- To challenge existing theories on the evolution of human cooperation.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of a representative sample of 88 recent raids conducted by the Turkana.
- Observation of social dynamics and enforcement mechanisms within raiding parties.
- Examination of community-imposed sanctions for non-cooperative behavior.
Main Results:
- The Turkana sustain large-scale, costly cooperation in warfare through the punishment of free-riders.
- Raiding parties involved hundreds of non-kin, demonstrating cooperation beyond immediate social circles.
- Sanctions, including corporal punishment and fines, are applied for cowardice and desertion.
- Warfare norms benefit the broader ethnolinguistic group, indicating cooperation at a larger scale.
Conclusions:
- Punishment plays a significant role in sustaining cooperation even in small-scale, uncentralized societies.
- Human cooperation may have evolved to operate at the scale of ethnolinguistic groups, enforced by third-party sanctions.
- These findings challenge the view that cooperation is limited to small kin-based groups.
Related Concept Videos
03:20The Stanford Prison Experiment
The famous and controversial Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by social psychologist Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues at Stanford University, demonstrated the power of social roles, social norms, and scripts.
01:27Punishment
Negative reinforcement and punishment are often confused but serve distinct functions in behavior modification. Reinforcement, whether positive or negative, increases the likelihood of a desired behavior, while punishment decreases it.
Punishment can be positive or negative. Positive punishment involves adding an undesirable stimulus, such as scolding, to decrease a behavior. Negative punishment involves removing a desirable stimulus, such as taking away a favorite toy, to decrease behavior.
Punishment can be positive or negative. Positive punishment involves adding an undesirable stimulus, such as scolding, to decrease a behavior. Negative punishment involves removing a desirable stimulus, such as taking away a favorite toy, to decrease behavior.
02:20Milgram's Obedience to Authority
Obedience to authority is classically demonstrated in a more famous series of social psychology experiments performed by Stanley Milgram. He was a social psychology professor at Yale who was influenced by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal. Eichmann’s defense for the atrocities he committed was that he was “just following orders.”
01:08Obedience
According to obedience research, we may harm others under the forceful pressures of an authority figure (Milgram, 1974). How about if the inappropriate orders were delivered with less force? The increasing interdependence between nurses and physicians compelled Hofling and his colleagues to explore nurses’ reactions to a potentially harmful medical request made by the perceived authority figure, the doctor (Hofling, Brotzman, Dalrymple, Graves, & Pierce, 1966). In this situation, obedience...
04:49Robbers Cave
During the 1950s, the landmark Robbers Cave experiment demonstrated that when groups must compete with one another, intergroup conflict, hostility, and even violence may result. At the Oklahoman summer camp, two troops of boys—termed the Rattlers and the Eagles—took part in a week-long tournament. During this time, their negativity culminated in derogatory name-calling, fistfights, and even vandalism and destruction of property. However, this work also revealed that such tension could be...
01:47Aggression
Humans engage in aggression when they seek to cause harm or pain to another person. Aggression takes two forms depending on one’s motives: hostile or instrumental. Hostile aggression is motivated by feelings of anger with intent to cause pain; a fight in a bar with a stranger is an example of hostile aggression. In contrast, instrumental aggression is motivated by achieving a goal and does not necessarily involve intent to cause pain (Berkowitz, 1993); a contract killer who murders for hire...