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Norm violations and punishments across human societies
Zachary H Garfield1, Erik J Ringen2, William Buckner3
1Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, Université de Toulouse 1 Capitole, Toulouse, France.
Evolutionary Human Sciences
|August 17, 2023
Summary
Human societies use diverse punishments to maintain cooperation. This study found punishment types correlate with socio-economic factors like food storage and social structure, not just cultural history.
Area of Science:
- Social Sciences
- Anthropology
- Evolutionary Psychology
Background:
- Cooperation in human societies is often maintained through punishment for norm violations.
- Comparative studies on punishment systems are rare, especially concerning socioecology and cultural history.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate correlations between punishment systems and socioecology/cultural history.
- To analyze the types of punishments and the norms they address across diverse societies.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample database (131 societies).
- Coded ethnographic documents for norm violations (adultery, religion, food, rape, war cowardice) and sanction types (reputational, physical, material, execution).
- Employed Bayesian phylogenetic regression modeling to test for culture-level covariation.
Main Results:
- Little evidence of phylogenetic signals in punishment types, suggesting rapid cultural evolutionary change.
- Reputational punishment linked to egalitarianism and no food storage.
- Material punishment associated with food storage.
- Physical punishment correlated with hunting dependence.
- Execution punishment associated with social stratification.
Conclusions:
- Punishment systems evolve rapidly and are not strongly dictated by deep cultural history.
- The type and role of punishment are influenced by specific socio-economic systems and norm severity.
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