Punishing defectors and rewarding cooperators: Do people discriminate between genders?

Abstract

Do people discriminate between men and women when they have the option to punish defectors or reward cooperators? Here, we report on four pre-registered experiments that shed some light on this question. Study 1 ( N  = 544) shows that people do not discriminate between genders when they have the option to punish (reward) defectors (cooperators) in a one-shot prisoner’s dilemma with third-party punishment/reward. Study 2 ( N  = 253) extends Study 1 to a different method of punishing/rewarding: participants are asked to rate the behaviour of a defector/cooperator on a scale of 1–5 stars. In this case too, we find that people do not discriminate between genders. Study 3a ( N  = 331) and Study 3b ( N  = 310) conceptually replicate Study 2 with a slightly different gender manipulation. These latter studies show that, in situations where they do not have specific beliefs about the gender of the defector/cooperator’s partner, neither men nor women discriminate between genders.