{"doi":"10.1098/rspb.2008.1082","title":"Constraining free riding in public goods games: designated solitary punishers can sustain human cooperation","abstract":"<jats:p>Much of human cooperation remains an evolutionary riddle. Unlike other animals, people frequently cooperate with non-relatives in large groups. Evolutionary models of large-scale cooperation require not just incentives for cooperation, but also a credible disincentive for free riding. Various theoretical solutions have been proposed and experimentally explored, including reputation monitoring and diffuse punishment. Here, we empirically examine an alternative theoretical proposal: responsibility for punishment can be borne by one specific individual. This experiment shows that allowing a single individual to punish increases cooperation to the same level as allowing each group member to punish and results in greater group profits. These results suggest a potential key function of leadership in human groups and provides further evidence supporting that humans will readily and knowingly behave altruistically.</jats:p>","journal":"Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences","year":2009,"id":675708,"datarank":8.085554619193644,"base_score":5.666426688112432,"endowment":5.666426688112432,"self_citation_contribution":0.8499640032168649,"citation_network_contribution":7.235590615976778,"self_endowment_contribution":0.8499640032168649,"citer_contribution":7.235590615976778,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":288,"citer_count":200,"citers_with_citation_signal":194,"citers_with_endowment":194,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":79104,"name":"Joseph Henrich","orcid":"0000-0002-5012-0065","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1765529,"name":"Mark Van Vugt","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1765524,"name":"Rick O'Gorman","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"Constraining free riding in public goods games: designated solitary punishers can sustain human cooperation","abstract":"<jats:p>Much of human cooperation remains an evolutionary riddle. Unlike other animals, people frequently cooperate with non-relatives in large groups. Evolutionary models of large-scale cooperation require not just incentives for cooperation, but also a credible disincentive for free riding. Various theoretical solutions have been proposed and experimentally explored, including reputation monitoring and diffuse punishment. Here, we empirically examine an alternative theoretical proposal: responsibility for punishment can be borne by one specific individual. This experiment shows that allowing a single individual to punish increases cooperation to the same level as allowing each group member to punish and results in greater group profits. These results suggest a potential key function of leadership in human groups and provides further evidence supporting that humans will readily and knowingly behave altruistically.</jats:p>","is_dataset_classified":null,"base_score":5.666426688112432,"endowment":5.666426688112432,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"18812292","pmcid":"PMC2674351","openalex_id":"https://openalex.org/W2159303103","authors":[],"funders":[],"total_grants":0,"fwci":26.2751,"citation_percentile":0.99413861,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[{"year":2012,"count":17},{"year":2013,"count":16},{"year":2014,"count":26},{"year":2015,"count":17},{"year":2016,"count":17},{"year":2017,"count":17},{"year":2018,"count":18},{"year":2019,"count":17},{"year":2020,"count":47},{"year":2021,"count":32},{"year":2022,"count":13},{"year":2023,"count":8},{"year":2024,"count":2},{"year":2025,"count":12},{"year":2026,"count":4}],"oa_status":"green","license":"https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/","oa_locations":[{"url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/2674351","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/2674351","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2008.1082","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rspb.2008.1082","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.1082","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18812292","host_type":"repository"}],"fields_of_study":["Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation","Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies","Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior"],"mesh_terms":["Altruism","Cooperative Behavior","Female","Game Theory","Humans","Leadership","Male","Population Density","Population Dynamics","Punishment"],"keywords":["Free riding","Public good","Reputation","Public goods game","Punishment (psychology)","Free rider problem","Incentive","Microeconomics","Function (biology)","Economics","Public economics","Social psychology","Psychology","Political science","Law","Biology"],"sdg_mappings":[],"linked_datasets":[],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-08-17T01:36:12.639925Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}