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- 2021
- Working Paper
False Signaling and Personal Moral Failings: Two Distinct Pathways to Hypocrisy with Unequal Moral Weight
By: Jillian J. Jordan and Roseanna Sommers
Moral engagement is a key feature of human nature: we hold moral values, condemn those who violate those values, and attempt to adhere to them ourselves. Yet moral engagement can make us appear hypocritical if we fail to behave morally. When does moral engagement risk... View Details
- Article
Signaling When Nobody Is Watching: A Reputation Heuristics Account of Outrage and Punishment in One-shot Anonymous Interactions
By: Jillian J. Jordan and David G. Rand
Moralistic punishment can confer reputation benefits by signaling trustworthiness to observers. However, why do people punish even when nobody is watching? We argue that people often rely on the heuristic that reputation is typically at stake, such that reputation... View Details
Keywords: Signaling; Morality; Trustworthiness; Anger; Third-party Punishment; Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Trust; Reputation
- December 2019
- Article
When Do We Punish People Who Don't?
By: Justin W. Martin, Jillian J. Jordan, David G. Rand and Fiery Cushman
People often punish norm violations. In what cases is such punishment viewed as normative—a behavior that we “should”or even“must”engage in? We approach this question by asking when people who fail to punish a norm violator are, themselves, punished. (For instance, a... View Details
- Comment
Which Accusations Stick?
The social function of witchcraft accusations remains opaque. An empirical study of Chinese villagers shows that the label ‘z hu’ influences who interacts across a social network, but appears not to tag defectors in service of promoting cooperation. An open question... View Details
- Article
Third-Party Punishment as a Costly Signal of High Continuation Probabilities in Repeated Games
By: Jillian J. Jordan and David G. Rand
Why do individuals pay costs to punish selfish behavior, even as third-party observers? A large body of research suggests that reputation plays an important role in motivating such third-party punishment (TPP). Here we focus on a recently proposed reputation-based... View Details
- Article
Statistical Physics of Human Cooperation
By: Matjaž Perc, Jillian J. Jordan, David G. Rand, Zhen Wang, Stefano Boccaletti and Attila Szolnoki
Extensive cooperation among unrelated individuals is unique to humans, who often sacrifice personal benefits for the common good and work together to achieve what they are unable to execute alone. The evolutionary success of our species is indeed due, to a large... View Details
- March 2017
- Article
Why Do We Hate Hypocrites? Evidence for a Theory of False Signaling
By: Jillian J. Jordan, Roseanna Sommers, Paul Bloom and David G. Rand
Why do people judge hypocrites, who condemn immoral behaviors that they in fact engage in, so negatively? We propose that hypocrites are disliked because their condemnation sends a false signal about their personal conduct, deceptively suggesting that they behave... View Details
- Article
No Unique Effect of Intergroup Competition on Cooperation: Non-competitive Thresholds Are as Effective as Competitions between Groups for Increasing Human Cooperative Behavior
By: Matthew R. Jordan, Jillian J. Jordan and David G. Rand
Explaining cooperation remains a central topic for evolutionary theorists. Many have argued that group selection provides such an explanation: theoretical models show that intergroup competition could have given rise to cooperation that is costly for the individual.... View Details
- December 2016
- Article
The Effects of Endowment Size and Strategy Method on Third Party Punishment
By: Jillian J. Jordan, Katherine McAuliffe and David G. Rand
Numerous experiments have shown that people often engage in third-party punishment (3PP) of selfish behavior. This evidence has been used to argue that people respond to selfishness with anger, and get utility from punishing those who mistreat others. Elements of the... View Details
- August 2, 2016
- Article
Uncalculating Cooperation Is Used to Signal Trustworthiness
By: Jillian J. Jordan, Moshe Hoffman, Martin A. Nowak and David G. Rand
Humans frequently cooperate without carefully weighing the costs and benefits. As a result, people may wind up cooperating when it is not worthwhile to do so. Why risk making costly mistakes? Here, we present experimental evidence that reputation concerns provide an... View Details
- Article
Third-party Punishment as a Costly Signal of Trustworthiness
By: Jillian J. Jordan, Moshe Hoffman, Paul Bloom and David G. Rand
Third-party punishment (TPP), in which unaffected observers punish selfishness, promotes cooperation by deterring defection. But why should individuals choose to bear the costs of punishing? We present a game theoretic model of TPP as a costly signal of... View Details
- January 2015
- Article
Costly Third-party Punishment in Young Children
By: Katherine McAuliffe, Jillian J. Jordan and Felix Warneken
Human adults engage in costly third-party punishment of unfair behavior, but the developmental origins of this behavior are unknown. Here we investigate costly third-partypunishment in 5- and 6-year-old children. Participants were asked to accept (enact) or reject... View Details
- Article
Heuristics Guide the Implementation of Social Preferences in One-Shot Prisoner's Dilemma Experiments
By: Jillian J. Jordan, Valerio Capraro and David G. Rand
Cooperation in one-shot anonymous interactions is a widely documented aspect of human behavior. Here we shed light on the motivations behind this behavior by experimentally exploring cooperation in a one-shot continuous-strategy Prisoner’s Dilemma (i.e. one-shot... View Details
- September 2, 2014
- Article
Development of In-Group Favoritism in Children's Third-Party Punishment of Selfishness
By: Jillian J. Jordan, Katherine McAuliffe and Felix Warneken
When enforcing norms for cooperative behavior, human adults sometimes exhibit in-group bias. For example, third-party observers punish selfish behaviors committed by out-group members more harshly than similar behaviors committed by in-group members. Although evidence... View Details
- Article
Contagion of Cooperation in Static and Fluid Social Networks
By: Jillian J. Jordan, David G. Rand, Samuel Arbesman, James H. Fowler and Nicholas A. Christakis
Cooperation is essential for successful human societies. Thus, understanding how cooperative and selfish behaviors spread from person to person is a topic of theoretical and practical importance. Previous laboratory experiments provide clear evidence of social... View Details
- Forthcoming
- Article
Punitive but Discerning: Reputation Can Fuel Ambiguously-Deserved Punishment, but Does Not Erode Sensitivity to Nuance
By: Jillian J. Jordan and Nour Kteily
The desire to appear virtuous can motivate people to punish wrongdoers, a desirable outcome when punishment is clearly deserved. Yet claims that “virtue signaling” is fueling a culture of outrage suggest that reputation concerns may inspire even potentially unmerited... View Details